[Vision2020] City Council's selective compassion

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Sun Dec 11 17:03:54 PST 2005


Mr. Crabtree and Visionaires -

The two situations are analogous in that both cases share hardship, and both
cases needed City Council's approval. The analogy breaks down, however, at
one point. In Dan Mack's case, he needed P&Z to grant a variance for his
proposal and he needed City Council to approve his variance-dependent
proposal, before he could evict low-income families from his property and
demolish their homes.

In NSA's case, NSA needs City Council to rewrite the entire Zoning Code as
it applies to schools in commercial districts (to avoid the appearance of a
spot zone), and NSA needs City Council to rewrite wholesale sections of the
Comprehensive Plan (retroactively) to justify the amendment to the Zoning
Code, in order for NSA to evade eviction.

In short, City Council gave a blind eye and deaf ear to the obvious hardship
Dan Mack designed for his tenants, and City Council rubberstamped Mack's
plan without once crying, "What about fairness?" or "What about equity?"

Now, however, certain persons on City Council believe that "fairness" and
"equity" require them to amend the Zoning Code, so that a three-time
violator can fill parking spaces reserved for shoppers and consequently put
his neighbors' businesses at risk.

The moral of this story is that high-profile special-interest groups, whose
land agent is a County Commissioner and the Executive Director of the
Chamber of Commerce, have better access to fairness and equity than
low-income families whose landlord's mother serves on City Council and is a
big-time player in the Chamber of Commerce.

Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"When people sin, everybody has to pay."

- Douglas Wilson of Wilson, Inc. (dba Christ Church) (June 7, 2002)

For more details:  http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse

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-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of g. crabtree
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 6:31 AM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com; Joan Opyr
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Re: [Vision2020] City Council's selective
compassion

O.K. I'll bite . What exactley are the specifics of the "David Williams" 
deal? I have seen it mentioned in several posts and have not a clue what 
it's about. Does it involve Mack's trailer court? Would somebody mind 
connecting the dots for me. Thanks
G. Crabtree





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