By Art Haynie
I was reading the paper the last couple days, and I’m amazed at the lack of understanding on the city of Santa Monica’s part to deal with homeless, illegal immigrants and pretty much anyone else who’s an “unwanted” or a blight on the city, or cause of lowering property values, higher crime rate and on and on... and draining the city’s resources all at once with nothing in return from them.
In towns close to the mountains where there are animals that are dangerous to humans such as bears, they have strict rules that people keep the things that they like away and unattainable.
Do what does Santa Monica do? Instead of keeping things out of reach of the high crime/drain on society folks, they hand-feed it to them. They build housing for them so that more homeless will come. And my favorite, they are building toilets for the illegal immigrants so they don’t s--t on your sidewalks. Rather than a simple and much more cost effective solution — one phone call to immigration.
Jesus, at least build all this stuff on the West LA border instead of around the beaches where the tourists want to come.
Santa Monica is feeding the bears. Can’t wait until someone’s hand is bitten off.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 3, 2005. Read the original PDF.