Lessons in Civics Or How Grandfather Got His Clause

The wonderful Cowtown City Council, bless 'em, has approved a grandfather clause regarding existing carports, and providing homeowners a "window of time" to obtain a permit. According to the city council website, side or rear yard carports do not have to go before the Board of Adjustment for violating any setback requirements, and have until September 1st to have the permit fee of $150.00 waived.

The one thing I have learned about wrangling with local, state or federal governments, is to NOT become a blip their radar. Unfortunately, my poor mother-in-law is now officially a Blip of the First Degree.

Seems she heard on the local news where carport owners without permits will be fined heavily if they do not file the necessary paperwork for legal exemption for carports built before January, 2003. So, being the very civic-minded citizen that she is, called the number given by the anchorlady, and reported her nearly 20 year-old wooden-framed carport. Let the bureaucratic BS begin.

My 83 year-old mother-in-law has lived in the same house for nearly 50 years. She has seen the once nice middle-class neighborhood change and deteriorate into a melting pot of low-income nomaders, races, and cultures, with a small bastion of "old-timers" sprinkled sparsely into the mix. She is of the generation who bakes cookies to take to new neighbors, checks on her old ones, and she attends her Baptist Sunday school class regularly. Her home is well kept and maintained. She plays by the rules always. Kman's step-father built the side carport many years ago, and at the same time, built one for the widow neighbor.

The innocent phone call has now brought out the Code Inspector Generals by the truckload ( the very thing that the City Council Elders promise will not happen to those good citizens who voluntarily obtain their permits). First Inspector, frowning, "Did you know the carport is too close to the property line? And these posts, are they fireproof material?" Now, it seems, she must await another Inspector General to give his quite knowledgeable opinion on the construction materials. All of which has caused my mother-in-law major acid reflux and troubled sleep.

Where were these Nazi Code Men when the next-door neighbor parked his derelict scow/boat for months on end in his front yard, allowing noxious weeds to grow to harvesting height underneath? Where were they when an across-the-street neighbor kept an upholstered, rat-eaten old sofa in the front yard under the overgrown, scraggly mulberry trees? And the neighborly pit-bull that roamed free and murdered two innocent cats? He had open season on cats forever. No one got in a big hurry to inspect these violations. But, 80 year-old, white-haired Christian grandmothers, with nice neat carports, are a danger and an eye-sore to the neighborhood and must be brought to justice swiftly.

Grandfather may have gotten his Clause without a fuss, but Grandmother is having a hell of a time with hers. Queue the music, someone call the Bureaucrat Busters, quick. The Pods are arriving daily.