Posted on 03/09/2006 1:27:54 PM PST by Coleus
Unfortunately this woman hasn't a leg to stand on. She, along with every other American who holds a mortgage or a deed on a house/residential dwelling; does not own land. The local government (county or parish) leases that plot of land to whoever agrees to the terms of the lease...which is a yearly property tax bill. Since the government owns the land and is the lessor...the government can dictate various statutes and regulations to the lessee.
"why is it that some judges take extenuation circumstances into consideration from thugs and rapists and not from a woman who was bilked out of thousands by a contractor."
Her lawyer said she owes him money but he would have helped her anyway!!
Why didn't he get her money back from the crooked contractor in the first place and why didn't the judge make that happen!!
All I can say, Hildy, is I'm glad I don't live next to you. Working 3 jobs I sometimes don't have time to mow the lawn twice a week. Glad my neighbors are a little more understanding.
My daughter used to live in Mahwah. Property is very expensive and highly taxed, although not always in very good shape. There are heavy, heavy ordinances for everything. The slightest deviation results in a big fine.
IMHO, some of the ordinances are unreasonable.
There was that little part about where she hired a contractor who took her money and left behind a big mess, but maybe you missed that detail.
Thanks for inserting a moment of rationality into the discussion. She was required to appear in court, and she thumbed her nose at the court system, so the judge issued a warrant requiring that she be brought before him. Same rules apply to any traffic ticket, parking violating, or 'loud music citation'. She could have raised her inability to pay, she could have claimed she couldn't afford the cleanup, she could have plead poverty, instead she just chose to ignore the courts. Judges are extremely unfond of being ignored.
"Its sad but I would really have to think hard to come up with the names of my neighbors on either side of me..
"
That's not a good thing. Go introduce yourself the next time you see them outdoors. Invite them over for a cookout. It could one day save your life.
Good lord,
you have some folks who see people and some folks who don't.
One day, may those who don't "get" what happened to this woman find themselves sitting in a home they can't physically keep up and the neighbors calling them names because they have an ugly house.
Damn,
I'm stayin' a swamp witch until the day I die. >:>
When a person lives in an area and can't afford to upgrade or buy acreage, they should have the decency to maintain their property for themselves as well as others, and those others should do the same.
If all people made an effort to do these things, I believe others would help them if they fell on hard times. In this case it sounds like she made no effort what so ever.
Communities pass these type laws for the few people like her. I won't tell someone how to live, but they should darn well try to make an effort to conform to a communities standards.
"One day, may those who don't "get" what happened to this woman find themselves sitting in a home they can't physically keep up and the neighbors calling them names because they have an ugly house.
"
Ugly, isn't it. Sometimes I despair over this kind of thing. Phooey!
WE THE PEOPLE are getting sick and tired of being ignored by Judges. Judges, who are only deligated the authority that we have granted them.
Always, the final authority belongs to the citizens of these United States.
People live differently, have different standards. Both ends of the spectrum from the gorgeous 5 bedroom with the stable and the kennel all the way down to the hermit with both a winter and summer home. Different strokes....*shrug*
This states explicitly the error that is implicit in many posts on this thread. In reality, there are intermediate points on this spectrum. E.g., I may buy a house in an association that limits my (and everybody else's) choices about the color of paint, what I can have in my yard, etc. This is a freely bargained contractual relationship that balances my freedom and my neighbors' in a way I think best for me. Or, I may decide to move to a town with voter-approved restrictive zoning rather than one without, because I do not wish to have a strip mall spring up next door. Property values in the two towns reflect these conditions. This is not so much a direct contractual bargain as an implicit one, but binding all the same.
I guess the lady in this case lives in a town that has some rules. We can all empathize with her plight, but her neighbors who chose to live in a town with rules and paid the market price to do so are entitled to have the rules followed.
bttt
I just love how the contractor was found guilty and fined.
Where did that fine go? General fund? Why shouldn't that fine go into helping this woman get the mess the contractor made UNdone or REdone?
Mahwah does not smile kindly upon homeowners doing their own work. Lots of high priced permits and inspections are required.
Every time my daughter hired a contractor it was a big mess, and half the time she got ripped off by them. The best work done on her house (which had had some very poor work done on it by the previous owner that the town overlooked) was done by my husband in the dark of night behind closed doors. More than once my husband had to repair shoddy work that a high priced contractor had done.
There seem to be 3 kinds of houses in Mahwah -- really old ones like the one described in this article, subdivisions built in the 1960s, and enormous homes that have been put in in the last 10 years on "tear down" sites.
Show us the yard!!!
If all people made an effort to do these things, I believe others would help them if they fell on hard times. In this case it sounds like she made no effort what so ever.
Communities pass these type laws for the few people like her. I won't tell someone how to live, but they should darn well try to make an effort to conform to a communities standards.
I can appreciate and agree with much of the above. With that said....still the Gov't (at all levels) has no business growing itself in to a role where it is dictating how people live...and how they maintain THEIR property...for which they are taxed on daily.
The bottom line is....if one wants everyone around them to live a certain way....they should buy up as much land as they can around them.....in order to ensure this. The notion that if one doesn't do this....they should look to the Gov't is crazy to me. And as anti-true America as a policy can be.
Lastly I would say we can't legislate or "fine" people into morality. That someone "should" out of decency try and keep up their "yard" is one thing.....to take that to the level where local Gov't should be allowed to "fine" them is utterly ridiculous.
I won't tell someone how to live, but they should darn well try to make an effort to conform to a communities standards.
A darn scary concept....and you very well are telling them how to live....if by standards you mean...it dictating how and what they are allowed to do on their OWN property.
It is their property. Not yours and not the Gov't. We are losing this fundamental concept......and doing so out of the "good for the community" BS.
Mahwah used to be that way, but a bunch of people moved out there to get away from the cesspool they created in Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Paterson, Passaic, etc., and now are recreating the same cesspool, but with bigger yards and more trees. Back in the 50s and 60s the town would have called a couple of the churches and got this fixed for her when they fined the dishonest contractor who cheated her.
Well, yeah, but.... In this case, the citizens decided they didn't want to live next to a trash heap, and established rules requiring property owners to maintain a minimal level of upkeep on their property. The citizens then empowered code enforcement officers to enforce those rules. And, the citizens then empowered the courts to hear and dispose of cases where the rules were broken.
You can question whether community standards that were voted in by elected representatives of the citizens infringe on individual rights, you can argue that freedom equates with anarchy, but you can't argue that the courts, or code enforcement over-reached in this instance, they just did their job. She made a promise to the court, which was acting as the citizens had empowered it to act, then she didn't keep the promise. It's as simple as that.
Which is exactly the case you are trying to make. What you are missing is this Country was founded fundamentally on privacy and property rights. Nothing to do with "what the community" wanted...or what the "community thought was best".
Again, if you want only neighbors that behave a certain way....then buy up all the land around you. Don't look for the Gov't to morph itself into a larger burden by getting involved in every aspect of our lives.
Pathetic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.