The Guide

Thursday, August 17, 1961 THE GUIDE 11

He Misses the Point About the Gibbys

A gentleman dropped in the other day to twit us for an editorial we'd written in behalf of a Gables family by the name of Gibby. We had said that the Gibbys were getting the run around at City Hall, that it was needless and shameful to boot. We haven't changed our minds. The Gibbys are people who wanted to buy a home here last summer but before doing so wanted to be positive they could enlarge the Parmo Avenue residence to suit their needs. They were told by the City's Building Department that they could. Assured that all legal requirements were satisfied, they purchased. This spring when they got ready to build they were denied a permit on the grounds their addition was in conflict with zoning laws. The gentleman who came to see us following the editorial is a member of the Coral Gables Zoning Board. He said he has sympathy for the plight of the family. But, he added, wasn't the Times being a little presumptuous to think that any civil servant in the Building Department would promise a prospective homeowner that he could get an okay on a zoning exception? At least this one zoning member misses the point. Perhaps others voted with him a few weeks ago as misinformed as is he. We point out that the Gibbys were not told they could get a zoning exception. They were not even told they needed one. To the contrary, the Building Department—whose duties include cognizance of zoning requirements—assured them that all was in order. On this assurance they put their cash down for a home. What is at issue here is not whether the City made a mistake. Undeniably it did. The assurance never should have been given. But having made the mistake, having caused the investment of $25,000 or $30,000 in property which is now unattractive to its owners, the City should rectify its error. It can do this in two ways: It can either award the Gibbys nominal damages or it can grant their zoning exception. And currently the City Commission seems only to compound the mistake by continuing to postpone a promised hearing to the Gibbys. A Coral Gables citizen has the right to expect more of his government.

Postscript

We get a bit choleric to hear the repeated defense from City Hall that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" in the Gibby zoning matter. The inference is that while the City erred, citizen Gibby should have known better. Pray tell, where may a citizen better inquire about zoning matters than at the City Hall and in its Building Department? And if he cannot believe what he is told here, to what source is he to turn for accurate information?

Editor's Mailbox

EDITOR: I have sent the following letter to Representative Dante Fascell and am enclosing a copy to you. Dear Dante: I remember as a young man in Philadelphia, it was my custom to attend lectures on Sunday afternoons. On one of these occasions Norman Thomas was the speaker. The subject was the Panama Canal and the circumstances under which we received possession of the area. When the opportunity arose I expressed myself on the subject. The audience didn't agree with me and they laughed. Norman Thomas politely rebuked them by inviting me up on the stage. Afterwards he took me under his wing, so to speak, and recommended three books to read. Dante, I was wrong on that occasion, as I soon learned. But, a fine, decent man like Norman Thomas did not allow me to be discouraged by ridicule or childish behavior. He respected me and sought to guide me. He did not treat me with scorn or as an outcast because we had a difference of opinion. Forty years ago he was treated that way himself. Yet now most of the things he advocated are accepted today. Many of them are now part of our way of life. We are now going through a surge of world-shaking events. These times call for forward thinking and freedom of expression. Thomas Paine said that "the greatest gift that God gave man was a faculty to think. Destroy this and you destroy man." I am thinking of Charles Kamen. I have never met the chap. I only write in his behalf because I believe in him. The Peace Corps will find in him a great asset and our country will derive benefits because of his knowledge and ability. Dante, I have learned you personally and know you are liberal thinking and understanding. Don't allow the clamor of the so-called American patriots who wrap themselves up in an American flag and want to destroy someone who disagrees with them to destroy this young man. I have always felt that our great country had nothing to fear except as Franklin Roosevelt said, "fear itself." Let us be open-minded and correct mistakes that need correction. That is Democracy. I know you subscribe to such principles and thus, will be fair in your judgment of such a real fellow American. N.W.W. Coral Gables EDITOR: I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you and the paper on the improvement that was made to the reader. Your new format not only improves the look of the paper, but I find that it is so much easier to read. The reader has a knowledge now (which I don't think I had before) of the number of people involved in putting your paper out. A wonderful job done. Keep it coming. LULU L. RIKER 951 S.W. 9th St.

The Crimes Of Charles Kamen?

What are the crimes of Charles Kamen? So far as we have read in the daily prints, the only thing the young Miamian has yet been shown to be guilty of is bad taste, an indiscretion from which not even Rotarians are immune. He made a fool of himself sometime back at the downtown Rotary Club when he loudly opposed a film being shown there, "Operation Abolition." He has since publicly recanted. As for the film itself, Kamen is not the only American to express reservations about it. These reservations are not about the movie's message—to beware Communistic infiltration in our country—but are misgivings about methods employed. Represented as sequential events are events that never occurred in sequence. All thinking Americans question such tactics, even if employed to oppose communism. As for Kamen and whether he's fit to be in the Peace Corps, an orderly investigation of his background should quickly determine that. It is just as important, of course, that the Corps not take in a doubtful candidate simply to prove it can withstand local pressure. The paramount issue here is to adduce a bill of particulars if the youth be charged with anything beyond upsetting a Rotary Club. If he is, let wise men act. If not, let us act as wise men.

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