I never get tired of stories about people on safari into flyoverland, trying to understand the mysterious natives.
My own county is convulsed right now with hurricane destruction. Although our house came through with flying colors, nearly every house in the county was damaged to some extent; a surprising number were totaled. Not very many businesses are back up and running yet. The county estimates that it's lost about 25% of its revenue base, a combined effect of devalued real estate and a huge hit to hotel/restaurant surtaxes and business sales taxes.
Naturally the County Commissioners have chosen this critical time to go full Nanny-State with construction permits, ostensibly in order to placate FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program. The timing is not ideal, given that FEMA appears to be universally loathed here. Citizens were surprised to learn that it's difficult to qualify for FEMA benefits unless you're broke and uninsured. Even if you seem to qualify, the application requirements are arcane or, at least, beyond the abilities of most broke and uninsured people. Facebook has been boiling with horror stories. I haven't run into anyone yet who got flood insurance benefits. We suffered very little from rising water, almost entirely from high winds.
Nevertheless, we discovered (to the discomfiture of those small-governmentistas among us who should have been paying closer attention) that the Commissioners Court adopted a floodplain administration plan in early 2016 that instituted a construction permit process for the county's unincorporated areas. On its face, it's not too horrible, in that it applies only to new construction or to repairs or renovations expected to cost at least half the value of the original structure. Unfortunately, the Commissioners are now inexplicably taking the position that it applies to all repairs. Naturally, this drives me nuts, not only the intrusion but the inability of a governmental body to think sensibly about whether they're really going to administer permits for everyone who needs to replace a window pane for the rest of time.
I'm very curious to see whether the citizens will put up with it. The Facebook response includes a good bit of sensible outrage that nevertheless is disturbingly leavened with a certain amount of "but gosh, everybody should be forced to build properly, and naturally only the government can make that happen." More to the point, because the Commissioner for my precinct just announced she will not stand for re-election in 2018, I have to decide whether to file for her position by the December 11 deadline. This is not a job I want. Still, I've always said that if you don't like who occupies most political offices, you should be willing to run for office yourself.
I'm trying to look at it as an experiment in whether residents of a largely unincorporated area of a deep-red Texas county are committed to small government. If they're not, I'll be disappointed and less hopeful about the future of our freedoms, but at least I won't have to serve. If I run and win, I won't be able to out-vote four other Commissioners, but I can make my voice heard, and I can certainly publicize their actions in a way that's actually calculated to reach the citizens, as opposed to meeting bare-minimum standards under the law.
Tex,
ReplyDeleteI may not live in your county, but you would be EXACTLY the kind of County Commissioner I would want representing me. You don't want the job, but feel that the people need a voice in a Commission that seems completely tone deaf to the needs of the citizens. Where can I go to vote for one of those?
The more onerous they make the rules, the more the rules get ignored. The corollary is since everyone ignores the rules, the enforcement has to get selective-only those with money get prosecuted. This is how we descend into what has been termed "anarcho-tyranny". VDH has written with much frustration of this in his area of California.
ReplyDeleteMass screaming protests at the Commissioners meetings will probably work as well as anything else. My father, an engineer and aircraft engine builder, paragon of logical solutions, admitted to me late in his life that screaming masses, foaming at the mouth with over the top emotion got more results than the most carefully reasoned argument. AKA squeaky wheel syndrome.
If you decide to run, let me know where to send my campaign donation.
ReplyDeleteT99: The Common-Sense Candidate!
ReplyDeleteonly those with money get prosecuted
It's even worse than that:
- The poorest (or in VDH's situation, people who are here illegally) don't get prosecuted because you can't get blood from a turnip.
- The rich don't get prosecuted because they have the means to fight back.
- People in the middle get it in the teeth, to the FULLEST extent of the law and then some.
---
Mass screaming protests at the Commissioners meetings will probably work as well as anything else.
Maybe they could design a special hat? ;-)
T99, what Elise said.
ReplyDeleteAnd if there's anything else I can do, wither from Plano or by coming down there, let me know.
Eric Hines
I encourage you to run. I ran for and won a Texas school board seat, and quit (in disgust) after one term. Yet turnover needs to happen, if only to frighten the long-term seat holders into TRYING to listen and respond to concerns.
ReplyDeleteYou're right on. I have also been considering running for office, although so far I have not done so because of my disgust at the idea of having to deal with the people who are already in office. My basic idea would be to seek election to an office for the purpose of dissolving most of the powers exercised by that office. I'm not sure that's what people really want, but I'm pretty sure it's what we need.
ReplyDeleteYou're all very kind and encouraging.
ReplyDeleteI think my slogan should be "First, do no harm." Honestly, the job of the Commissioners Court in the Texas system is supposed to be quite limited. They mostly rubber-stamp quite ordinary budget proposals. I like it when they coordinate county resources to achieve things like ambulance contracts, but I detest the idea of them imposing themselves where they aren't wanted or needed. I certainly don't appreciate their eroding our liberties in aid of trying to suck in more federal money. They should be running the local situation just enough to keep state and federal officials off our backs.
From the link:
ReplyDeleteIn 2005, she was one of the founders of Third Way, a center-left think tank, and it was in that capacity that she and four colleagues had journeyed from both coasts to the town of Viroqua, Wisconsin, as part of a post-election listening tour....
We had come to the final stop on our listening tour, and the hippies were wary. Viroqua, a town of less than 5,000 people, has in recent years become home to a tiny progressive community.
I wonder if the Third Way folks (hat tip to the former POTUS) were aware of one of Viroqua's claims to fame. Gerald L. K. Smith, who gained some renown and notoriety as a political agitator in the 1930s and 1940s, grew up in Viroqua. He was associated with Huey Long, but unlike Huey Long, was also racist and an anti-Semite.
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith (February 27, 1898 – April 15, 1976) was an American clergyman and far-right political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later founded the Christian Nationalist Crusade. He founded the America First Party in 1944, for which he was a presidential candidate in the election that year.[1][2]
I wonder if the author of the Atlantic article was aware of that.I doubt it. The moment I read of Viroqua, I thought of Gerald L.K. Smith. Though I had a head start, as I knew some academics who had researched him.
(Gerald L.K. Smith also reminds us of the tenuousness of much of our classifying into left and right. While Gerald L.K. Smith is today labeled a right-winger, he had also been a vocal supporter of Huey "Share the Wealth" Long.)
The article seemed to reinforce what we were talking about regarding an un-bridgeable chasm in viewpoints- not only do the two sides hold opposing views, we can't even understand how the other side can think that way. I read an except from Camille Paglia recently, where she was talking about the utter historical ignorance of the newer generations-essentially she said there was nothing left for them to make a rational decision with except emotion.
ReplyDeleteRun, Tex, run! You would be ideal, I think.
ReplyDeleteCareful, Tex you might get what you wish for!
ReplyDeleteThe citizens of your county should be so lucky.
”The county estimates that it's lost about 25% of its revenue base”
Hopefully, that’s short term- as things get rebuilt- property values will rise above their previous values, and businesses will reopen and the local economy will benefit from the influx of liquidity from paid out claims and resultant building contracts and the secondary and tertiary effects from that.
Of course, all this stuff about building codes arouses my attention.
”Naturally the County Commissioners have chosen this critical time to go full Nanny-State with construction permits, ostensibly in order to placate FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program.” This is part of why they want the federal government to get involved in everything. Then they have the ability to force local governments to adopt measures they wouldn’t have anyway by virtue of the carrot they hold in aid or other funding. Of course, the county could just inform the public that if you don’t build to code, you may not qualify for aid, and let people decide on their own if that’s important or not, but we can’t let the little people make these decisions themselves, can we?
"the Commissioners Court adopted a floodplain administration plan in early 2016 that instituted a construction permit process for the county's unincorporated areas. On its face, it's not too horrible, in that it applies only to new construction or to repairs or renovations expected to cost at least half the value of the original structure." This is how they backdoor things in. I'm not automatically against it- some codes are useful and important for safety, but much is not, particularly so-called 'green' code. One thing this kind of code tends to do though, is make people cut back larger projects to be less than half the value of the property.
"Unfortunately, the Commissioners are now inexplicably taking the position that it applies to all repairs."
Unfortunately, since most permit applicants just want to get their permit, they'll submit to this power grab. Unless some developer that has the means to fight this brings suit, it's not likely to get challenged. They know this. I've often thought that a non-profit designed to fight for citizens against unfair or unreasonable interpretations of the code would be useful. I've found that lower level bureaucrats default position is to take the most stringent reading of a regulation unless explicitly told it's ok to do otherwise.
Tex, good luck to you if you decide to run, both in the election and should you win, in office. I’m sure it’s not a fun job for someone who isn’t in it for the fame and power bought with other peoples money. You’d be awesome, though.
Thanks again, all of you.
ReplyDeleteDouglas, the general feeling in the county is that you'd be an extraordinarily lucky person to get noticeable individual benefits out of FEMA (or for that matter, the Red Cross). There's little leverage there. On the other hand, the County gets pretty generous benefits from FEMA, which picks up 90% of a great deal of repair spending. The Commissioners are fiercely focused on keeping FEMA happy.
Even so, not even the most pinheaded big-government enthusiast at FEMA wants the County to demand a repair permit for minor repairs. They're content with the bright-line 50% rule that the Commissioners now are trying to ignore. If I can find the right citizen whose roof repairs are unreasonably delayed, resulting in damage in the next rain, they may find they've taken on an expensive test case, the proceeds of which may fund the next test case. I don't think the language, incompetently drafted as it is, is all that ambiguous, but I do know that courts have tools for resolving ambiguity, and I don't believe any court is going to resolve a purported 50% rule in favor of the Commissioners' position that the tiniest, least structural repair triggers a permit requirement. Once you ditch the 50% protection, you're left with an absurd contention that we need a permit to fix a one-inch gap in the caulking around a window. There's no trace of a basis for anything in between.
As Tom said the other day (was it Tom?), freedom isn't about what the government merely doesn't stop you from doing, it's about what the government can't stop you from doing.
...freedom isn't about what the government merely doesn't stop you from doing, it's about what the government can't stop you from doing.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that.
The default position is to simply ignore them. That is what happens when rules get pervasive.
ReplyDeleteAND IT IS WHAT THEY WANT.- because then, enforcement can become selective, "show me the man and I will show you the crime". This has been noted as a main tool of tyranny on by a host of very astute individuals throughout history.
One thing this kind of code tends to do though, is make people cut back larger projects to be less than half the value of the property.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, that kind of code just means that my project, originally costing 70% of my structure's original value, will be split: I'll do a 40% junk one year and a 30% chunk (now a lower per centage, as the first chunk will have increased the value of my new original structure) the next year or two years later. Which isn't all bad, anyway, as that will let me see whether my original project, as originally designed, really was all that.
...freedom isn't about what the government merely doesn't stop you from doing, it's about what the government can't stop you from doing.
I think this is backwards. Freedom is about what we will permit government to do.
Eric Hines
Mr. Hines- they're on to the like of you. It has a cumulative clause that looks at all permits in toto since the regulation was enacted. But you're thinking like an architect or contractor in today's overregulated world. It's an arms race of sorts.
ReplyDeleteTex, I can tell you that the 50% rule is well established in the code, and now with universal code most municipalities that have a code use mostly the same code (with their own addenda). I think it'd be a slam dunk case.
Yep, that was me. I was responding to another one of those CATO studies that declared the US is less economically free than Hong Kong over at Maggie's Farm.
ReplyDelete