Posted on 12/22/2018 8:56:48 AM PST by MtnClimber
The terrible reality of how un-free our nation has become was painfully impressed upon me in dealing with the "omnipotent moral busybodies" of my city's public administration, whose charge it is to enforce the legal requirements for home remodeling projects. Although I pay the mortgage, cover the cost of upkeep, buy homeowner's insurance, and send in my annual property taxes, the little Caesars in the Planning, Building, and Public Works divisions made quite sure that I knew who actually owns my home and gets to dictate what can be done with it. In July 2017, my building planner submitted drawings of my proposed garage conversion project to the Planning Division in our city's beautiful, modern administrative office. The clerk charged him a submission fee of $240, which he immediately paid. He was told that the drawings would go to a planning review committee. Six weeks passed with no response from the Planning Division, so in September 2017, I asked him to go to the beautiful, modern administrative office building to find out what our intrepid public servants were doing with the drawings. On this second visit, a different clerk told him, "I'm sorry, the previous clerk charged you $240. The actual fee for plan submissions is $249, so your account is $9 short. That's why we didn't move forward with it." The Planning Division personnel – who are paid by my tax dollars to know the fees associated with plan submissions – misstated the initial fee, yet their department collected and cashed the check with the incorrect amount anyway. They did not call, text, email, fax, or send smoke signals to either my planner or me to inform us of the error;
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
All I can say is wow!
So far, you got off easy...
If I want to build a house in the Matanuska Susitna Borough, where I live, I just hire a contractor and tell him what I want built. The Borough requires no building permit at all. I like that attitude better.
The author went to Colorado Theological Seminary; that probably explains the lack of screaming obscenities in the article.
If the homeowner builds it himself, it's not the government's business.
Now that the author has publicly shamed the local functionaries, he will find out just how much worse it can be - reinspections that uncover previously unnoticed errors, mandated reconstruction or demolition, reassessment of the value of his house, and if he continues to be a “problem,” contact with his local employer, a little extra highway enforcement, etc.
I have a brand new car sitting in my garage and I can not drive it because the FL DMV claims that it is NOT insured.
Of course it is insured who would be stupid enough to own a new car and not insure it? To make matters worse because there is “NO” insurance on my car they have also suspended my driver’s license.
I have been to the DMV 4 times with proof of my insurance and the title of the car. DMV person types in all of my information and bingo my license is reinstated. Car is insured for at least until the next letter from the DVM informing me that I have NO insurance on my vehicle and my license is suspended which occurs every few weeks.
This has been going on since last May when the car was purchased. I can not get through to these people and neither can my insurance company. How free am I?
How free are any of us when we need a license just to exist?
This could be my town! I have a very similar story.
Get a good atty; they will straighten it out.
“People of earth... the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition...
“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint.”
— Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
If he were in California, he would have had to convert all his lights to LED, add solar panels, put in a 200 amp EV charger, change out his windows to triple pane low-e glass, and convert all his smoke alarms to interconnected AC power. Would have added $85,000 to the project. But he would have felt good about saving the earth. That’s priceless.
Have you called the main office? Had this issue when I bought a travel trailer. A phone call cleared it up.
If CWII ever happens, local petty bureaucrats may find that life is suddenly very exciting.
While the services of a good attorney may well be helpful in this case, they shouldn’t be necessary. Government is supposed to serve us; petty (and not so petty) bureaucrats have completely turned that around.
For all those that work for GubMint-
“YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!”
Don’t try and justify your existence leeching off of tax dollars. Quit and get a productive real job. Vote with your neighbors to REDUCE GubMint sepnding, staffing, intrsion and meddling.
Look in the mirror.
IT IS YOU that are the problem.
If you work hard at it, you may be able to repent long enough to not be hated for eternity.
Bookmarked.
Real estate agents are probably happy when people don’t ask related questions before buying a house.
Caveat emptor.
Unbelievable.
(well, not really)
And....add a sprinkler system
“Government is supposed to serve us”
Right you are.
But sometimes you need a hammer, as kind words just don’t suffice.
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