"Doughboy" Assassins: The Dark Side of Neighborhood Associations?

Here's a shameful story about the closure of Doughboys bakery in Santa Monica that should help remind NC's why it's crucial to maintain a diversity of stakeholders, balance and moderation in policy-making, and the courage to remain truly independent from extremist "nimbys" masquerading as a "community."

The story makes everyone look bad, as in a "civic" tragi-comedy where every actor is cast as a villain: the city struts about on stage like a blind clerk, poor in foresight but rich in bureaucracy, homeowner association members make ruckus as pitch-fork wielding peasants, and the city leaders appear foolish in their exercise of power, like Creon, Claudius or Don Carleone.

The restaurant owner is the only actor in a redeeming role, as a kind of Cindrella that never meets her prince, or a devoted Cordelia sacrificed by her own insecure, self-obsessed father.

All the drama aside, it's sad being in the audience watching a hard working community-spirited business become a helpless victim of our most myopic instincts.

You leave this little show feeling drained and dispirited, both your thumbs definitely pointing down. This isn't how it's meant to work.

For the curious, here's a little information about the word doughboy.