Academy of Local Politics

Poop...Crap...#2... call it whatever you want...it's all the same.

It is also one of the biggest responsibilities that local government has. Treating and/or safely disposing of this normal bodily function.  

Then we learn from this AP article in the Mansfield News Journal ...

Members of a small, isolated Amish community are refusing to follow state code in their handling of waste from a school's two outhouses, citing their religious convictions.

The Amish property owner said he is even willing to go to jail to defend his beliefs. Local officials aren't eager to go to that extreme, but are in a quandary over how to assure the laws are applied uniformly and the raw sewage doesn't contaminate water supplies.

Waste from the outhouses has been collected in plastic buckets, then dumped onto fields. The county is demanding the Amish install a holding tank and contract with a certified sewage hauler for disposal.

A district judge last month found Andy Swartzentruber, on whose land the outhouses sit, and school elder Sam Yoder in violation of state sewage disposal law. They have until Tuesday to pay more than $500 each in fines or to appeal the ruling.

"I'd rather go to jail, and abide by our religion," Swartzentruber told The Associated Press one recent afternoon while taking a break from tilling a field.

Yoder and five other Amish men laid out their beliefs in a handwritten letter to the sewage enforcement agency in January.

"We feel this sewage plan enforcement along with its standards is against our religious (beliefs)," they wrote. "Our forefathers and the church are conscientiously opposed to install the sewage method accordingly to the world's standards."

Conscientiously opposed? I go along with their religious beliefs and their being conscientiously opposed to going to war. But, conscientiously opposed to treating their poop?

"People respect their religious beliefs," township supervisor Giles Dumm said. "Nobody's coming down on them about that."

But, he said, "it's not fair to the rest of the community if some people have to abide by the sewage laws and some don't."

Ahhh, a voice of reason.

I firmly believe that people who live in rural areas should be required to have working private septic systems. Emphasis on working. Working properly.

I have never lived in a rural area that which required me to keep a septic system operating properly. My flushes have always resulted in my waste being piped to a municipal waste system. Therefore, my knowledge of such systems is very limited.

I do know that whenever even reasonable rules are proposed, they are met with fierce opposition by some property owners. I've been to some of those meetings over the years. Some folks believe they have a right to do whatever they want on their own property. Period.

Where this rambling is leading... is Douglas County, Montana. According to HelenaIR.Com there is a very big question if the County Board went a little too far in passage of new septic regulations.

On May 15, 2007, county commissioners passed hotly contested interim zoning regulations for the Helena Valley Planning Area...

Since then, anyone who owns a lot smaller than five acres within the district must install a Level II treatment system, at a cost between $13,000 and $18,000, when building a home or replacing an old system. Simply installing another standard system would cost somewhere in the $4,000 range.

Now, I have no idea what a Level II system is. What I do know is the cost of a new system around here is in the $4000-$5000 range. So, they must be "standard."    The $13,00- $18,000 cost came as a shock to even me.

Did the County Commissioners go too far?

What was most interesting to me was the comments which followed this online article such as...

Hmmm, I liken this to a doctor asking, should we do invasive surgery or should we do chemo & radiation on this patient, all the while ignoring the fact that the patient doesn’t have cancer, and a simple aspirin would suffice to cure the headache. “Overkill” is an understatement.

and

There were at least 6 public hearings on the interim zoning. Time and again experts from a number of fields, including a DEQ employee, engineers, water experts, and county commissioner Anita Varone cautioned the commission, in both oral and written testimony, that first of all there wasn’t an emergency, secondly their “solution” was very expensive and further did nothing to correct the “emergency, and lastly why not take the time to do zoning right. Of course, as we now know from history, our commissioners ignored the experts and instead told us that they know what is best for us, as they often do. If they didn’t mean for this to happen, perhaps they should have listened to the experts.

The commissioners made a mistake. Plain and simple. But, the truth of the matter is they were warned time and again that they were making a mistake. Time will tell if they have the intestinal fortitude to admit the mistake and take responsibility for their decision, or instead continue to place the blame on others.

It appears that these new regulations may have been approved by a group of elected officials who have no more knowledge about septic systems than I do. That can sometimes happen in local government. Local officials make decisions on issues they have no knowledge, all the time.

Then, when you toss in a little arrogance with that ignorance a very volatile mixture may be created. That mixture is a brewin' around Helena right now.

Every city has them. Plans that do nothing but collect dust on the shelf. Red binders, blue binders, binders of every color and size. All lined up on the shelf in no particular order.

According to the Atlanta Constitution Journal, "Four years after metro Atlanta called for conservation measures that were supposed to ease water needs, there's been no metrowide accounting of how much water has been saved. Nor are there requirements for actual reductions."

The finger pointing is rampant as the drought worsens. Local Officials are blaming the State Officials. State Officials are blaming Federal Officials. Federal Officials are blaming the Local Officials.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

The problem with "Plans" is it takes political will to implement those plans.

Recommendations in "Plans" never have easy solutions to problems. If there were easy solutions to the problem, there wouldn't have been a need for a "Plan" to begin with. Since the solutions are hard, it is easy to put off implementation.

Government always like to take the easy way out. If you put off a problem long enough, it becomes someone else's problem to deal with. But, by then the solutions first recommended are outdated, so a new "Plan" is needed.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

While this plan is ignored to solve long term water problems in the Atlanta area, they have another problem in North Carolina.

We learn from the News & Observer in Raleigh, "in the midst of what may be the worst drought ever in North Carolina, Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are watering the synthetic turfs used by their field hockey teams."

That's right. They are watering fake grass.

They are making it very hard for me to work up any sympathy for them.

How about you?

The paint stripers are in town this week. You can't help but notice the wider (12 inch) lines in the pedestrian crossings. We also had a bonus this year. The spreader that disburses the glass beads on top of the wet paint is broken, so the glass beads have been spread by hand. In the picture you can even see some of the beads in piles outsides of the lines. We'll be able to see these crosswalks like never before! They are bright.

All in all, I give CommonSenseville.US a B+ for yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks. We can always get better, but we do pretty good.

While in Washington I read a piece by Harry Jaffe discussing toll roads leading into D.C. Council Member Jack Evans is quoted as saying "the District of Columbia continues to subsidize two of the richest counties in America". It harkens back to what I wrote back on February 27. Supposedly "rural" areas sucking the services right out of where they work and shop, but don't own property and therefore don't pay their fair share of taxes or fees.

I also read in the Washington Post where it is estimated that 10% of the fire hydrants in D.C. don't work. (Registration Required) I'll be checking with Utility Director Mario Powers if we have the same percentage. I'll let you know if we do have known problems out there. I know I would want to know if the hydrant at the end of my block didn't work. So should you.

Doesn't matter the size of the city, we all have the same problems. Just at different times and in different proportions.

Mayor Al

Sorry about the glare at the bottom of the picture. I  think it's my finger.

Those are two ugly trees aren't they. Let me tell you their story.

These two ash trees  were planted in Spring, 1987. They were a birthday present. With a new baby and a new home, this family decided to have a couple new trees in their front yard to grow with them. So the wife gave the husband these two trees to plant for his birthday

When planted in 1987 there were no electrical lines above. Only a small cable tv line. They were faithfully watered during 1987. They survived the winter of 87-88. The watering continued.

In early June, 1988 an underground explosion of a major electrical distribution line occurred under the sidewalk just a few feet from them. Flames towering from the inferno singed them. Really singed them. They were on the "critical" list for the next two years. But, in spite of that trauma they lived. They were however, severely stunted at this time.

That electrical outage sent the entire city into darkness for the day. Production stopped. Retail closed. Air Conditioners wouldn't come on! It was a mess. These trees had a front row seat. In spite of a record heat/drought year in early 1988 the cause of the line failure was due to "water" seeping into the line. Maybe someone had been watering those trees nearby? May they be the "cause" of the electrical outage of '88 that people still talk about?

The replacement of the electrical line went overhead. That meant in the future the utility department would be "trimming" them around the wires. This trimming has nothing to do with aesthetics. They just butcher until they think they are done. They get mad when I say that, but just look! I have proof! What else would you call it?

This is the result of now 20 years of growth of these trees lovingly planted and cared for.

Aren't they ugly?

That's what living in the city can do to a tree.

They're mine. Thanks again Honey, for the birthday present.

Mayor Al