Column for Feb. 12, 2009

Once again, an "I told you so". This time about local ordinances and tyranny

People scoffed when I wrote that local planning and zoning ordinances can be used for control and can be a form of tyranny. Here are two more examples of usurpation of power and freedom.

By the time this column is published, the Town Council will have most likely taken a vote on whether to apply its ordinance on abandoned, nuisance, and junked motor vehicles to the ETJ, or extra-territorial jurisdiction. The proposal by the town is to allow the code enforcement officer to take an ordinance specifically intended for application within the city limits and extend the authority to cover into the ETJ, which is not within the town limits.

An ETJ exists for the sole purpose of planning growth outside the town's corporate limits to accommodate orderly future growth of the town. I personally disagree with the existence of an ETJ, since it amounts to regulation without representation. There is a violation of being governed without the consent of the governed or the benefit of services of the governing agency.

Selma wants to take an ordinance designed to be about motor vehicles and traffic and apply it to people who do not live within Selma. Junk cars have nothing to do with systematic planning for future growth of a town. Don't get me wrong, I hate to see junk cars in driveways and on properties here in town or outside of town as much as anyone. However, I have a fundamental problem with the idea of taking a law designed to be enforced within the town limits and apply it outside of our corporate limits. If we can do that with the junk cars provision, why do we not find a way to enforce the town's speed limits, parking, fire prevention, and livestock possession laws on people who do not even live within our town, as well?

Can you see how this is "letting the camel stick its nose into the tent"? Let's clean up our own act here in town before even thinking about telling people who do not even live within the town to clean up theirs. Let's not enforce what is in effect a parking and storage law outside of the town's limits.

A second issue came up recently and hit my best friend. My buddy, Dave, lives way out in the country in northern Johnston County. It takes me almost thirty minutes to get there from my house in Selma. He moved to the middle of nowhere on purpose.

One day, Dave came home to find a violation notice on his door. A busy body code enforcement officer for Johnston County went on to his private property on a private road to complain about the fact that he has three campers and a lot of cars on his land.

Every one of the cars is registered. Two of the campers are response vehicles for emergency communications. One is owned by the Johnston County REACT Team, one is for the NC Emergency Reserves and has been used in hurricane response efforts by several agencies. One camper is a private RV. Two of the vehicles in question are registered to the State of North Carolina, and after the state abandoned its constitutional militia efforts, several former members have been left with the burden of upkeep and storage of its vehicles.

Dave takes no services from the county, such as water, sewer, electricity, etc. He had a county inspector on his property when he had his house built and the utility hook up for his campers installed and approved. He has met the requirements for keeping vehicles on his property registered. Yet a meddling inspector felt compelled to show up to a private residence on a private road in the middle of nowhere to extend a hand of power onto someone's private country acreage. He even used Google Earth type satellite photos from a few years ago as evidence for coming onto private property.

The fact is that there have been no complaints by any neighbors or passers by. This is the hand of over-reaching government. It is funny that I pass by dozens of junked cars, dilapidated buildings, old signs that probably violate the county sign ordinance, and properties that were once construction sites but are now illegally abandoned to get to Dave's house. The inspector would have to drive past the same things in order to get there.

Why can we not just leave people alone when they are out in their own remote personal paradise? Some people move to the country to escape such problems only to find some eager beaver intruding on their freedoms already approved by previous inspectors. Yes, local ordinances can just as easily be used as a form of oppression as can state or federal laws. I told you so.