Slightly misleading headline. The city has no issue with the "library", they take issue with the library being a free-standing little shack making it a building code violation.
Restricting where on a property one can erect structures is common in building codes across the world. And as always with laws and codes, once you allow for exceptions, everyone and their uncle will go to court to get an exception too.
What I think the city should have done is invite the kid over to city hall and offer their assistance in navigating the process towards getting permits or whatever is needed to continue running the "library". That would be a helpful lesson to learn and probably yield a nice photo op for the mayor in the local newspaper - win win. Instead they taught him that government and bureaucracy are soulless machines.
Since we're being pedantic, many cities have different rules for what is allowed in a front yard vs. a back yard, which may actually be the problem... this often leads to the occasional news story about the town that forces someone to remove a garden in their front lawn, etc.
I read the entire comment, the initial point about the title being misleading irked me.
There was nothing misleading about it, it accurately conveyed what happened. IMHO we're beyond the point where micro-debating the various ins and outs of these things is helpful. Yes they should have done what he/she suggested, but yes - NONE of this should be happening. It's tiring and ridiculous.
The future is going to be tricky, we need to move faster and more efficiently than this.
The title is definitely misleading and does NOT accurately convey what happened. According to the article the city didn't ask him to stop sharing books, and as far as I can tell they are still sharing books. Just doing it from the garage instead of a free standing bookshelf (the real question is, what exactly is an "accessory structure.") Is a picnic table a free standing structure? What if you place a bread box on it?
Comments
Slightly misleading headline. The city has no issue with the "library", they take issue with the library being a free-standing little shack making it a building code violation.
Restricting where on a property one can erect structures is common in building codes across the world. And as always with laws and codes, once you allow for exceptions, everyone and their uncle will go to court to get an exception too.
What I think the city should have done is invite the kid over to city hall and offer their assistance in navigating the process towards getting permits or whatever is needed to continue running the "library". That would be a helpful lesson to learn and probably yield a nice photo op for the mayor in the local newspaper - win win. Instead they taught him that government and bureaucracy are soulless machines.
Do they consider dog houses to be free-standing buildings? Bird houses?
"Instead they taught him that government and bureaucracy are soulless machines."
I think that's a better lesson than how to "navigate the process towards getting permits" for a damn bookshelf.
Since we're being pedantic, many cities have different rules for what is allowed in a front yard vs. a back yard, which may actually be the problem... this often leads to the occasional news story about the town that forces someone to remove a garden in their front lawn, etc.
That comment was the true definition of apologist. It honestly made me laugh, it's been awhile since I seen anything like that.
Very slightly misleading.. I doubt anybody actually thought they wanted to have a book burning. We're not quite there yet.
- The 9 year old used his brain, his humanity and his creativity to make something nice for the community.
- We delegated power to a collection of mindless bureaucrats.
- Mindless bureaucrats caused problems for 9 year old.
Pretty accurate title.
This comment doesn't respond to its parent at all. It's like you read the first sentence and then stopped.
I read the entire comment, the initial point about the title being misleading irked me.
There was nothing misleading about it, it accurately conveyed what happened. IMHO we're beyond the point where micro-debating the various ins and outs of these things is helpful. Yes they should have done what he/she suggested, but yes - NONE of this should be happening. It's tiring and ridiculous.
The future is going to be tricky, we need to move faster and more efficiently than this.
The title is definitely misleading and does NOT accurately convey what happened. According to the article the city didn't ask him to stop sharing books, and as far as I can tell they are still sharing books. Just doing it from the garage instead of a free standing bookshelf (the real question is, what exactly is an "accessory structure.") Is a picnic table a free standing structure? What if you place a bread box on it?
It's quite probable that the city official did not even know it was a nine-year-old kid's structure, since the family was on vacation:
from article> When we got home from vacation, there was a letter from the city