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THE COST OF FREEDOM!
News Feb 14, 2015
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The group that calls themselves “Preserve Sierra Madre” believes that they are performing a great service for the property owners of the City. They have been pressing the government to create a host of new regulations, controls and great costs for the people of Sierra Madre. They have lost sight of one simple fact, which is: “For every action there is an opposite reaction.”
This form of thinking of “no change” has been going on for many years, but I’ll only deal with a few of the current examples.
It started with the update of the General Plan, which has been going on for approximately five years and not finished yet. This has resulted in many new regulations and controls which has given the government more power over our property rights. This has already cost the taxpayers over an easy million dollars for consultants, attorney, staff personnel and time spent by all areas of the government.
This wasn’t enough to satisfy the pressure group of less than twenty of the townspeople, which have repeatedly pressed the government for more and more restrictions.
This brought on the moratorium of water restrictions and a building moratorium, which, in fact, only affects 13 parcels of land on the Stonchouse subdivision, which is not even close to starting to build the first house. The truth is that this group is really aiming at no more building on any large areas that building may occur anytime in the future.
Now the City Council has spent more than one hour during a special meeting discussing a demolition moratorium. There always is a given reason why, which in this case, is to prove historical homes that may still be existing, however, in this case they are talking about stopping all forms of demolitions, including remodeling and partial additions. This has already involved the hiring of additional employees and financial costs of other staff and legal costs. This also starts in motion the hiring of a consultant in order to make a survey of historical homes, which probably won’t add up to 19 new finds of homes that are not already known. This is only getting started.
All of those actions cost a great deal of MONEY for the taxpayer – to say nothing about the “PROPERTY RIGHTS” of the homeowners of the City. This group is doing far more damage than the good that they think they are doing.
As the lyric of the song goes, “Straighten up and fly right”. What will save the people from all these negative results?
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