Hours After Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County Tickets Residents for Code Violations
19th September 2017
Mere hours after Hurricane Irma, Miami-Dade County was ticketing residents for building code violations on their wrecked properties.
Celso Perez was helping his neighbors remove some fallen trees blocking their street when a county code enforcer rolled up and issued him a safety notice for having a downed fence. “I laughed,” Perez tells WSVN-TV. “I thought he was kidding. ‘You are kidding right? We just had a hurricane six hours ago.'”
It wasn’t a joke. The official told Perez that the downed fence—which encloses a pool—was a safety hazard, and that if it wasn’t fixed by the time he returned, Perez would be hit with a fine. The official then hung the safety citation on the portion of Perez’s fence that remained standing, leaving him and his neighbors to finish clearing the debris from their street.
Bureaucrats remain bureaucrats and are oblivious to common sense.
And Bernie wants such people in charge of our health care.
September 19th, 2017 at 14:52
After Hurricane Ike, I received a notice of noncompliance from the homeowner’s association for constructing a new fence without obtaining prior permission. I replaced 6 boards at a narrow gate. I called – naively thinking it must be a mistake – and they told me that if I replaced more than 10% of a single face of a fence – even one destroyed by a tree branch like these – then I needed approval. There are only 8 or 9 boards on that portion of the fence, so any repair would need a permit. After many unfruitful minutes talking the passive-agressive bureaucrat, I decided to download the application and submit it along with a written complaint.
Hmmm, a PDF file; and I have a PDF editor. Time to misbehave. I edited the part that said I agree to let them inspect any time they want to so that it now reads that they understand that if they do not obtain written premission to enter my property prior to entry that they will be arrested and charged with trespassing. I sent the form, along with my comments about how one would expect them to recognize that there had been a hurricane, etc. They signed off on it without comment and sent me a copy.
My mother worked for a nursing home that was sent a notice that they had to file a flood plan with the feds. They called and wrote and tried to make the feds understand that the nursing home sat on top of a hill and couldn’t possibly flood. Nope, the plan must be filed. The brothers that owned the company had a few adult beverages one night and wrote a plan that including using boards from the maintenance shed to build an ark 40 cubits wide and how the patients would be loaded 2 at a time, etc. The plan was accepted and filed away. Then some clerk noticed it and sent a copy to Paul Harvey, who read it aloud on his radio show. Two days later, feds with badges showed up at the front door and threatened to arrest the owners. After some discussion – and actually looking at the property – the feds agreed it didn’t need a plan and issued a variance.
Before agreeing to Bernie’s nanny state, please take a hard look at the nannies that will be in charge.