"I Like Firing People"
Maybe it's the meeting I sat through yesterday with State Park employees, who were working on an Emergency Response Study addressing a small upcoming community event, at which perhaps a few dozen people will eat home-made cookies under a locally famous tree, while listening to a handful of politicians make remarks about a BP-oil-spill-guilt-financed acquisition of whooping crane habitat for the local state park. (The study will detail their plans for a "First Amendment Corral" to be set aside for potential protesters.) ("State Park Unfair to Non-Whooping Crane Species.") Or maybe it's persistent recent reports of a Fish & Wildlife officer who's suddenly made it his life's work to harass locals who drive completely unregulated golf carts on our tiny, untrafficked, low-speed streets in this unincorporated rural coastal community. Maybe it's the upcoming presidential debates. For whatever reason, I got a kick out of this Wizbang post: "If You Work for the Government, You Deserve to Be Fired." He's not a true firebreather, of course; he makes an exception for teachers and first responders.
...reports of a Fish & Wildlife officer who's suddenly made it his life's work to harass locals who drive completely unregulated golf carts on our tiny, untrafficked, low-speed streets in this unincorporated rural coastal community.
ReplyDeleteOne small aside: this sounds like an excellent reason for all the good residents of your community to jump in (and into) their golf carts and start scooping the loop. All over. All day, all night.
Eric Hines
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ReplyDeleteWe pretty much do already, but I like where your head's at!
ReplyDeleteOur county commissioner is working on getting the required variance from the Texas Legislature to permit the expansion of an already-existing golf-cart waiver. Currently, the waiver extends only to people who are within two miles of a golf course and actually going to or from a game. There's a golf course on this little peninsula, largely abandoned by its owners but informally kept up by the neighbors who want to play. The neighborhood is so small that just about all of it is within two miles of the course. The problem is that the game warden harasses people about the evident fact that they're not on their way to or from the course. The waiver, if it makes it through the state legislature, will eliminate the golf course "purpose and distance" requirements and simply allow golf carts in all unincorporated areas on streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or less.
The game warden still will have the power to mess with people about their headlights, taillights, parking brakes, mirrors, and reflective orange triangles (even though we'll still be legal only in the daytime), which should warm his heart. I don't know what's gotten into him. He's a longtime resident who never used to be a nut. I wish he'd concentrate on fish and game. We've tried reasoning with him and talking to his boss and his boss's boss, but no luck so far. I can't believe we're having to go to the Texas legislature to get him under control.
A mechanical question: how is a game warden authorized to worry about urban traffic law compliance?
ReplyDeleteWe have constables in the Metroplex, but they have no actual authority; they have only the appearance of an official-looking car labeled "Constable," the power of persuasion, and the fundamentally good nature of the citizenry who might jawbone with him over a stop, but won't offer violent resistance.
Eric Hines
I'm told he has the discretion, though not the duty, to enforce state traffic laws.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were down on the Gulf last year, an elderly gentleman used to drive one of those unregulated carts down the public streets (quite legally in Florida). He had mounted a huge chrome Biker Cross on the back of it that was engraved: "KILLER."
ReplyDeleteIn Georgia, any state-certified peace officer (including local county or city police who have been to the Peace Officers State Training course, which is all of them) can enforce any law anywhere in the state. This was put into place to avoid the problem of escaping from a speeding ticket across the county line (Georgia has 159 counties, making this otherwise a very easy strategy to make good).
ReplyDeleteI imagine Texas has a similar law.
I'll not harsh on your Barney Fife F&W officer. Like Barney, F&W guy sounds like he does a good enough job of self-denigration all by himself. Andy aka the legislature is the appropriate way to remove his figurative bullet from his shirt pocket.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the racket known as public unions go, I'm with W.T.H. at Wizbang. Public/government unions are a perpetual-motion machine fueled by self-serving corruption and OPM(taxpayer funded) if ever there was one.
Like all perpetual motion machines, friction tears it apart once the lubrication runs out.
ReplyDelete"Like all perpetual motion machines, friction tears it apart once the lubrication runs out."
ReplyDeleteYep. Ya can smell the smoke worldwide.