Posted on 09/30/2009 8:54:37 AM PDT by Borges
WATCHING KIDS AT BUS STOP MEANS TROUBLE
IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.
Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day-care centers.
“I was freaked out. I was blown away,” she said. “I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called all the girls” — that is, the mothers whose kids she watches — “every one of them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at telegram.com ...
An hour of BABYSITTING is a crime?
It’s just another ridiculous EXCUSE for the STATE to CONTROL YOU and have you rearrange your life and PAY FEES TO THEM.
Excerpt
“Snyder’s predicament has led to a debate in Michigan about whether a law that says no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are licensed day-care providers needs to be changed. It also has irked parents who say they depend on such friendly offers to help them balance work and family. “
How great it is that the state of Michigan has solved EVERY LAST ONE of its nagging problems so its officials can turn its attention to this issue. How about that — all that crime, blight, unemployment — all fixed! MI must be a great place to live! /SARC
Nanny state rules again...
Just heard the State Seantor from that area on WJR, he’s going to try to change the law.
Idiot buracrats told him, “this is the way the law reads.” The law is from 1973, never used this way before.
At least the agency and the governor has applied some common sense to this situation, I was ready to read that they weren’t backing off the agencies position.
What totally pisses me off is the neighbor who turned them in. I have a neighbor like that, no fun, but he will get his eventually.
This is just the latest example of oppressive government and the over-reach of nanny state regulations.
Several years ago, farmers in the Texas Panhandle were seeing their cows starve during a prolonged drought, but they couldn’t let them graze on their wheat land because the USDA had not granted them permission to use their wheat land for grazing. Simply insane...and our Founders would be appalled that we have allowed our freedom to be abused by our own government after so much blood has been shed to preserve it from foreign assault.
Or maybe not. We have one like that going on 15 years. According to our by-laws for our small townhome lots, she has illegal plantings on her house, put up a fence without a permit, and has three dogs (our by-laws permit two) whom she allows to violate the county leash laws every day, screaming and screaming at them under everyone's windows to come back, when they shouldn't have been off leash in other people's yards in the first place. Whenever she is cited, she gets a lawyer and threatens to bankrupt the Association. And you guessed it -- she is the first to complain about any tiny gnat she sees on everyone else's property.
What category do they place babysitting?
I did alot of babysitting when I was a kid- even in a rural setting. Lots of it was done AT MY HOME-because the parents were going out of town for a wedding or some such.
HOA laws have no teeth. Someone should challenge her next time she turns in a neighbor. Have her present her complaint before the board and then have the board challenge her behaviors.
I am thinking it was the school bus driver who turned her in, as she can’t think of anyone in her neighborhood who would do this.
I guess Hillary was wrong, it doesn’t take a village, just a bunch of nanny staters.
I understand your point, but it concedes to the agency and governor the power to make that decision which I am not willing to concede. If they have the power to make that decision, whether we agree with it or not, it is still tyranny. Who the hell are they to insert themselves in a parent's decision of who watches their children and then grant reprieves? Yes, we can applaud their "common sense", but if we accept their authority to rule in the first place, we accept their tyranny. Tyrants can occasionally be right, but they are still tyrants.
The kind of neighbor who will collect their 30 pieces of silver as you are frogmarched to a “reeducation camp”.
Special place in hell...
You are correct. It is like the middle school student council. She knows the Board will cave because they don't want to raise the dues in order to take her to court. My strategy lately has been shouting back and humiliating her, which I have done twice, but it only works for about 6 months, and then she starts all over again. My next ploy will be broadcasting pompous classical chorale music out the window whenever she is nearby, but I'll probably be the one hauled before the Board for that. LOL!
Thanks for your sympathy.... Can't wait for my sale sign to go up after some repairs.... No more HOA's for me. My next move will be a working class Catholic neighborhood of small bungalows with anchor fences.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
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.