Editor,
It appears from Rita Robinson’s front page story, (“Police Golf Cart Will Round Up Homeless,” in the April 29, 2016, edition that our police chief, clearly not channeling Abraham Lincoln, believes that our poor, disabled and un-housed citizens are an eyesore that needs be removed from the sight lines of the privileged early morning walkers who, even when facing the glorious Pacific, manage to react with resentment rather than compassion when they notice a homeless person trying to rest.
The chief’s description should at least give pause to those who argue that the city is acting in good faith with regard to the local homeless. Continuing a policy of waking citizens, many of whom are already suffering from mental disabilities, and ordering them to a location that will likely not receive them, just to make them invisible to the thoughtless, is barbaric.
Eerily the chief’s description of the offense, “the eyesore of people sleeping,”echoes a recent incident at the library described to me as a local matron loudly complaining that she shouldn’t have to see the homeless or their messy possessions out in front. Good grief! Has selfishness been accepted as our primary principle of public action? I hope not.
James Keegan, Laguna Beach
Agreed. What REALLY concerns me is that the Laguna Police Department goaded the city into giving them the “ok” and funds for this glorified golf cart without ANY discussion of how it would be used: rounding up the free-range chattel of Main Beach……
I’m sure there are many here in town that would rather see our money and human power used to drastically reduce the DEATHS on PCH and the Canyon. What ever happened to the supposed increase/crack down on speedsters, those who plow thru flashing crosswalks and the illegal left turns off PCH????
Surely Laguna Beach, it’s citizens( homeowners/renters/visitors and homeless) deserve much more.