I would hate to walk in Joe's shoes.
If you don't know Joe, he's the city employee that has to make sure certain codes are adhered to.
He deals with all sorts of obstinate people. Some think they're above the law and don't have to abide by any rules (sort of like the people who thumb their noses at parking rules).
But I gotta believe he's going nuts with signs around town.
You might recall that the antique mall painted a big sign on their building in four foot block letters that said ANTIQUE MALL. The paint wasn't even dry when the code enforcers descended and made them paint it out. Now its a nice big red block. Other people have had to jump through bizarre hoops to put up a sign that other communities don't have a problem with. The restaurant on Front St. wants to put up a sidewalk awning overhang, but it's against city rules. An auto center wants to put up an electronic sign, but rules don't provide for it. Someone wants to put up a banner sign. It's not allowed. Someone wants to put up a sidewalk sign. No dice. Someone wants to put up a street cafe. Jump through hoops.
Some people want to do anything they want no matter what the rules are.
And people like Joe have to play tough guy. It's not an admirable position to be in and I imagine he keeps pretty busy.
I was driving down Telegraph the other day and noticed that across from the antique mall there are three banner signs plastered along the building. Not too attractive and probably in violation.
But can you imagine trying to tell people they don't have a right to do anything they want on their property? On some days Joe must get called everything but Joe.
Speaking of being called everything, an anonymous poster in the post below called for a little more decorum with respect to name-calling and such. It's a free country and people can call anyone anything they want, but I tend to agree. It doesn't matter if you are talking about the mayor, any councilpeople or any other community characters, I would hope we would try to keep it semi-clean. My problem is that although I welcome all sorts or outlandish commments and personal attacks, I also recognize that there's a chance some kids might stumble across this site -- I mean little kids. So if you could act as if your young grandson or granddaughter might read this accidentally, I think we can get our points across without profanities and vulgarities that I would like to think none of you regularly spout around kids.
Of course I can just block offending contributors, but I really don't want to do that. So let's try to self-police a little. Otherwise, you just portray yourself as little neanderthals with pea-sized brains whose views will generally be disregarded.
Here's what I mean: Suppose you like Citizen A and despise Citizen B. If you call Citizen B a nasty name, it tells me that good old Citizen A can't be of that good a character because some of his or her best friends and admirers are advocates of gutter-speak. It really is usually true that coarse language is the sign of a coarse and uneducated person.
And that's my sermon for today, brothers and sisters.