Coffee Unplugged
From:
Wizard Marks
Date:
Oct 23 20:22 UTC
Short link
John Harris: "This seems dangerous to me. Rules should be as black and white
as possible so the enforcers of the rules do not need to interpret the intent.
I believe the system is working as intended. A rule was
agreed upon."
Sad to say, I think your statement is only a wish. Rules, speaking
specifically, ordinances, are not all that black and white, leaving lots of
room for interpretation by employees of the city. Every different head of
department can enforce his/her interpretation of any particular ordinance or
part of an ordinance.
Further, unfortunately, no human rights department can effectively screen for
some kinds of negative behavior. Bribery can be an issue. Example, in Phillips,
year ago now, an inspector drove up in his car to a corner house which had just
put in some 160 feet of expensive retaining wall. It looked really nice and
improved a prominent intersection. The inspector, never having gotten out of
his car, judged the wall one inch higher than regulation and wrote orders for
the owner to correct it. What does that tell you about the ordinance and the
particular inspector?
Also, Minneapolis is only some 150 years old, already its ordinances run to
over 800 pages. That tells me that the ordinances need a thorough weeding for
outdated, unworkable, foolish, or benighted ordinances or parts of ordinances.
There are also Minneapolis ordinances which contradict each other, so the
offender has a catch 22 dilema. Sometimes, especially when the population is
beating down the council members' doors because of problems, the city council
rushes in and create a Rube Goldberg ordinance, only to find that the
ordinance, as written, cannot solve the problem. They do not necessarily go
back on a scheduled basis and correct the ordinance.
On a past thread, I cited an ordinance that says that no more than 4 unrelated
people can live in a house regardless of size of house or behavior of occupants
(but 37 related people can live in one designed for 10 max--and have). If that
ordinance were evenly applied, there could be no group homes or convents, and
the ability of single people to live collectively is absolutely stunted. Its
particularly counter productive for young, single people and elderly
single/widowed/widowered people, but the ordinance constrins.
"This is a law? a selection of silly laws from around the world," by Nigel
Napier-Andrews. Minnesota is featured. MPL has a copy.