A City's Contempt for Private Property
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com
The city of Hopewell, Virginia (where I live) has decided to demonstrate absolute contempt for private property rights. They are doing it in the name of the battle against urban blight. However well-intentioned, what they are doing is still wrong.
Hopewell has sent its police force and its associated volunteers into its citizens' yards to place warning tickets on broken down, inoperable, and unlicensed vehicles that are not covered up. Failure to remove, repair, license, or cover these vehicles within a given amount of time will result in their owners being hauled into court and assessed heavy fines.
I could understand this being done to vehicles parked on public streets and/or in city-owned parking lots. Hopewell would have every right to do this to owners of those vehicles. I would have no sympathy for the violators. However, people should have the right to keep anything they want to keep on their own property, assuming it doesn't create a public safety or health risk. If it creates the perception of blight, too bad. And if the argument is that this kind of thing of this is an eyesore, then there's a strikingly simple solution – don't look.This Article has been viewed 202 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)"However, people should have the right to keep anything they want to keep on their own property, assuming it doesn't create a public safety or health risk. If it creates the perception of blight, too bad. And if the argument is that this kind of thing of this is an eyesore, then there's a strikingly simple solution – don't look."*** Perfectly said Terry. For those of us who have a pulse and imagination we see such items, as a vehicle in a yard, as ART and NOT trash! To observe an object that is rich in history is the sort of thing that makes me want to stop, talk, and know my neighbor and his/her immediate surroundings better. An old car on private property is the stuff of great conversation.Whenever I drive by a house that, let's say, has a broken down 67 Chevy Malibu in the front yard, my first reaction is to dream of it's past owners, the love-making that took place in the back seat, the thinking and reasoning behind the design of it's time, gas prices then and now, etc. - just as I do when I view a painting or drawing.Paintings drawing, designs, pottery, and the like are all links to who and what we were, and valuable historic lessons. It's no different for a vehicle on a lawn. Your town should protest that a car on private property is not detestable, but rather ART! See what the lifeless souls say to that.Next thing you know they'll be telling you to cut down the trees in your yard because they claim it creates the "perception of blight."Kenny, thanks for reading and commenting. I'm glad someone else finds this as disturbing as I do.
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