Cher’s Lawsuit Against Malibu

Hypocrisy? How are we to square Cher’s professed concern for the environment and other vital issues with her lawsuits filed against the city of Malibu (Times, Nov. 7) for interfering with her plan to build a 16,000-square-foot bluff mansion in this fair city?

Cher dear, in case you haven’t noticed, there are people sleeping in the streets, the planet’s getting overpopulated and so polluted that our very survival is hanging in the balance, and you are spending money--that could have far better uses--on a capricious lawsuit against Malibu because the city’s Land Use Plan, requiring you to set your house back 25 feet from the cliff edge, would prevent you from having a tennis court? Had you gone through the disastrous winters of 1980 and 1983 in Malibu, you’d understand these laws were passed to protect people from harming themselves and their neighbors.

Have you any idea how hard we struggled in the last city election to get environmentally sensitive members on the City Council? How much time, effort and dedication it took to pull together the Malibu Grassroots Movement? . . . All the good people that pulled together to put an end to the kind of overdevelopment detrimental to the environment and to our fragile geology! And here you come and sue the city of Malibu because the City Council is doing the job it was elected to do --and our hard-won laws be damned: It’s actions like yours that are jeopardizing the good we all are trying to do.

E.G. OLINGER

Malibu