working to maintain its' housing stock. I have just discovered one
very good reason why people do not spend on their houses as much as
the Mayor wants. We recently decided our 88-year old windows could use
a fix-up - most of the ropes were broken - and also being some 20-
years past the ladder climbing age we opted to have the window wood
exterior wood work covered with siding. To do this purely cosmetic
work the city required a permit be issued and its fee was $525. The
permit specified that the window area could not deviate by more than a
small percentage of the original - so city ordinances prohibit house
owners from redesigning house cosmetics - some rooms in our our house
are almost all window with very little space for even tiny pictures.
The lesson here is that Minneapolis never misses a chance to gouge the
public. It is one thing to require permits so that important matters -
electricals, plumbing, structural - get done properly, but it seems to
me the city has no business whatever in matters of taste, design,
appearances, or cosmology.
Inasmuch as the city is running inspections/permits as a means to
raise revenues in matters that have nothing whatever to do with health
and safety, I plan on voting no on every single tax measure in the
future regardless of what it is said to be for.
There is one tiny bright side - the ordinance about installation of
toilet paper has not been approved yet.
Jack Ferman
Kingfield Neighborhood
<email obscured>