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Letter to the Editor: Sister Bay Was Ugly Before, So Why Complain?

Myles Dannhausen Jr.’s article [“The Missing Context for Sister Bay Hotel Debate”] on March 9th about the Sister Bay ugly hotel debate concludes among other justifications, that since the village has always been ugly it’s okay to put up a large, ugly hotel in the center of the village. This idea deserves further scrutiny. Analogously, let’s find the worst, most dangerous or offensive thing from the past, and so long as a proposed new thing is no worse, then it should be allowed. I think this threshold of quality is comically too low. The cognitive mistake is that we do not have to choose between no hotel or an ugly hotel, we should be choosing between an ugly hotel and something else that’s not ugly. Sadly, there is no Ugly Police Squad, and one man’s throne is another man’s Porta Potty. Certainly, there are architects, designers and planners with pedigrees from whom outside opinions could be solicited before committing to such an intrusive structure?

 

Tim Erskine

Liberty Grove, Wis.

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