Posted on 12/08/2009 3:52:00 AM PST by castlegreyskull
Edited on 12/08/2009 5:39:33 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON -- White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that it is "silly" to think that a 90-year-old Medal of Honor winner is being asked to remove a flagpole from his front yard.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Col. Barfoot fought for the notion that all people are equal under the law.
Let’s honor that by waiving the normal rules and giving him a free spin, huh?
You offer some excellent advice.
At least he understands what the CMH is... not sure his boss does....
Hate to burst your bubble, but there is no rule prohibiting his flagpole in the association rules...some nosy busybody complained, and the board made up the rule after the fact.
I had a neighbor complain about my flagpole to the HOA. My response was questioning why she didn’t have one and if she didn’t like it I would buy her a one way ticket to North Korea. Never heard from the neighborhood nazis again.
All the HOA needs to do is have a meeting and vote in a rule that 90 year old Medal of Honor recipients are exempt from the no flag pole rule. It’s not like there will be rash of them moving into the area.
Well, when they rejected his request for a 20+-foot pole, he could have asked them if a shorter pole was acceptable.
Or he could have asked if the community would consider putting up a pole on the common grounds (all the grounds were common, even his front yard).
While waiting, he could have bought a 5-dollar bracket and hung his flag off his wall, like his neighbors do. He claimed that hanging a flag off his wall at an angle would be “flying it half-mast”, but obviously that is not the case.
He could have simply appealed the ruling, or petitioned his neighbors to join him in asking for a re-hearing.
Often times an HOA will reject something, but be open to reconsideration if it turns out everybody is OK with it.
What he should NOT have done is ignored their ruling and put up a flagpole without permission.
And while I support him getting a ruling change so he can have a flagpole, I resent Mark Warner’s claim that the rules should be waived, and the HOA should act illegally, to allow this guy to have his flag since he’s a decorated war hero.
Nothing against decorated war heros, but being a hero doesn’t make you royalty, or mean the rules don’t apply to you. We don’t have a “flagpole exception” for veterans.
In fact, a hippie anti-war protestor has as much right to put a flag pole in their front yard as a decorated war hero.
But it’s not surprising that Democratic politicians are all urging that the rules don’t matter, that the guy should be able to do what he wants since it’s “popular” to say so.
Other than James Webb, I am betting that every one of these guys would be the first to show up to complain if someone put a large flagpole up without permission next door to THEIR homes.
I like you.........the only way to beat these little hitler’s is to confront them
Wow, is he LATE to the game. The HOA already extended the deadline, and has invited Mark Warner (a personal friend of Barfoot) to mediate the dispute.
It’s essentially over already. Warner will recommend the flagpole stay, and if he’s smart he’ll come up with some bone for the HOA so they can save face — maybe the guy pays a $50 fine for disobeying the ruling and violating his contract.
The HOA will agree to whatever Warner says, and it won’t be like they arbitrarily changed their mind or have to worry about other homeowners getting their good buddy the Senator to intervene on their behalf.
And HOAs around the country will start illegally asking applicants if they are veterans or have friends who are powerful democratic elected officials, and make their rulings accordingly, thus proving once again that for liberals, there is an aristocracy and rules should reflect that.
i’ve been having trouble finding a good picture of the entire flagpole in context of the neighborhood, so it’s hard to judge whether the flagpole fits with the decor of the community.
Most HOA guidelines don’t specifically mention pink flamingoes, but they are regularly rejected because they violate aesthetic guidelines.
Some people seem to think that every item you could possibly imagine to put in your front yard has to explicitly be mentioned and banned in order to be rejected.
Instead, since the flag pole is NOT mentioned, it does leave it up to the discretion of the board. If the community wanted to allow flagpoles, they would have mentioned flagpoles as being permitted, and given guidelines as to location, height, and lighting restrictions.
I’m sure the HOA has a rule about front yards, something like “all man-made items of a permanent nature exceeding 12 inches in height must be approved for aesthetics and compatability with the look and feel of the community. If approved, county and state rules regarding permits must be followed. Plans must be submitted indicating the location of the item, it’s height, color, and use”
If the HOA has the right to stop people from putting totem poles in their front yards, they have a right to stop flag poles.
A Freeper actually drove around the neighborhood and posted pictures a few days back on one of these related threads.
As I recall, the home is secluded on a cul-de-sac with just two neighbors, and the pole does not exceed the height of the home. It cannot be seen by the community at large at all, dues to trees and surrounding landscaping in the area.
If the HOA wants to challenge him, they better have met, took a vote, and have minutes of their meeting to back up their complaint.
Every HOA’s regulations are different, and the wording of some are poor. His docs would have to be examined for the specific wording.
And I don't hate at all correcting your incorrect statement.
The HOA has rules regarding what can be put in front yards. This is a community where the land is owned by the community, and set aside for the use of the townhome owners with restrictions.
The Homeowner, when he moved into the townhome, submitted a request to install the flag pole. The board reviewed the request, and rejected it.
The homeowner built the flagpole anyway, so the board told him he had to remove it, since he had not recieved permission to build it.
Even if you believe a flag pole should be approved, you must also follow the HOA rules for getting approval for building something. If any homeowner actually put up a flag pole without first getting permission, the HOA will virtually ALWAYS request that the item be removed, because without prior approval it violates the deeds to build ANYTHING.
In those cases, the "remedy" is usually for the homeowner to pay a fine for violating the rules, and to submit a request for the item they have already built. A sane board would then rule on the item without regard to whether it was already built, but some HOAs get really picky when people break the rules about getting approval.
Because if you let one homeowner get away with building stuff without permission, and only asking for permission if they get caught, EVERY homeowner will start building without permission, hoping they slip through the cracks.
HOAs operated under laws passed by constitutionally formed governments, and operate under strict guidelines, subject to appeal to the courts.
But they are private contracts between consenting adults. Why should private contracts be banned, or be restricted to what governments are allowed to do under the constitution?
We sign contracts all the time committing us to things that the government would otherwise not have the authority to force upon us. So a group of people can’t afford a 20-acer property; instead 20 of them get together, buy a 20-acre property, subdivide it into 20 homesteads, and agree to a set of rules they will all follow so that they can all live together peaceably and enjoy the entire community.
Why is that something that you think should be prohibited? Why shouldn’t those people have the right to enter into such an agreement?
“Other than James Webb, I am betting that every one of these guys would be the first to show up to complain if someone put a large flagpole up without permission next door to THEIR homes.”
Webb would first check the prevailing political winds, first. Don’t give him too much credit.
That doesn’t sound like the home in question, but some details have been sketchy. I found what I think is his address, he’s on a cul-de-sac with 6 closely neighboring properties, and with his back yard up to a school.
The school is interesting because there was a fight last year over the school property, and the HOA was instrumental in preventing negative impacts to the homes surrounding the school, which includes Barfoot’s property.
I would love to see the pictures though — I’ve been searching for them.
Anyway, there’s been a lot of misleading information posted as well, for example in one report this was a townhome community — obviously that’s not the case, now that I see the google map of the property and have found a couple of pictures.
Or whever from Fox News who wrote this.
Regarding my statement about “townhome community”. Barfoot does not live in a townhome. It could be that the neighborhood includes townhomes. So now I think he does own his own front yard (it is not common anymore for land to be held by the community for detacted dwellings, although my parents did live in a community where they rented the land).
I apologize for the error.
I just meant that James Webb does not strike me as a person who would EVER complain about a flagpole, even put up next to his house.
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