Think Before you do Anything

I have been following the saga of the march of the whackos in The Eastern graphic as The Montague Town Council tries to top every succeeding weeks stupidity with yet another mind numbing act. It all started with an order to two of the Towns churches to tear apart a couple of minor building projects they had undertaken without the blessing of the Town fathers. One built a fire escape in case someone was trapped on the second floor of their hall and the second put up a wheel chair ramp to assist those with disabilities have an easier time getting into the church.

I believe they actually have to approve any construction in the town at their monthly council meeting. I can see some problems coming up here. Couldn't be like everyplace else in the world and have permits issued by their administration.

Now maybe they think people in Montague are a bunch of well organized little bees who think things through well in advance and keep everything in their hives in fine trim. This does not describe me and not not many of them either I believe. A building project will drift out of mind on and off for months before I actually start anything and when its time for action it ususally starts on an impulse at about 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning with a time table to complete sometime that afternoon. So if I lived in Montague unless the Town council happened to meet in my front yard at about 8:30 theres not much chance of me getting a permit in time for start time of 9 o'clock. And if I had to wait until the second Monday of the Month and bring my plans in triplicate to get a permit before I start, Schurmans is not going to have a good year.

How hard in a small Town is it to give Pastor John a call and say, nice looking fire escape you built there, could you send in something telling us what you did along with $5.00 and we'll make it nice and legal. Instead the special kind of stupidity shared by bureaucrats, politicians and committees kicked in and a proclomation was issued to remove the offending structures at both churches, then make an application for a permit, and then rebuild what you just tore down. My mother used to remind me to say please when I wanted something and she was pretty successful at getting the point across without any Draconian incidents. I'm lucky one of my parents wasn't a Town Councillor in Montague, I can see it now little Johnny spears another potato and scoffs it down, in Montague he would be forced to throw it up, ask for another potato and then swallow it again.

Not wishing to stop by offending the local Church community these guys turned on themselves. It appears one of them was going to build a shed, so in anticipation of starting a project some bright Saturday morning one of the councilors ordered some trusses and had them delivered to his back yard. Apparently this raised the ire of some of his fellow councillors who must have seen the opportunity for a bit of payback for some snide remark in council chambers and Beck was turned in. He defended himself vigouresly against the might of town council who argued with equal passion that having the material on site was the same as actually starting. I think I'll send them some applications forms to join the flat earth society, these guys are prime candidates for membership. It seems you don't have to actually start building to need a permit in Montague all you have to do is begin assembling the tools. whats the difference between having some lumber dropped off and sitting at your kitchen table sketching up some plans. Both part of the process, what's next, they take away our pencils. Let the wrangling begin, next up, there were renovations done in City hall, guess what, nobody issued a permit. And guess what else, they didn't issue a notice to themselves to tear down what they had done and then apply.

There's an old civil service joke about a guy hanging by his thumbs and a man with a whip looking at him. The caption underneath says " You didn't do anything wrong but you broke our rules." Way to go Richard, Naill, Henry, Hugh, Peter and Beck.

But wait these guys aren't done yet. The local kids and seniors club needed a new floor in the Generation XX clubhouse. They were lucky enough to have some businesses donate enough plywood and tile to put a new one down. Now this is an organization run by volunteers so they did what volunteers do, they put out the call and enough people showed up to tear the old floor out, put the new one down and lay the tile over a weekend so it would be ready for an event that was being planned for next week. Well guess who came to dinner, the grinch himself in the form of the offical by-law enforcer for the Town who immediately whipped out his whanker and pissed all over the parade. "Home you scoundrels"he declared "they're be no good deeds done on my watch." Way to go Montague Town Council.
Just when you think that that stupidity has reached about as low as it can get the councillors start digging again. It was reported in this mornings paper that the application for a permit for the kids club to put their new floor down was turned down at last nights council meeting. They have to leave the torn up floor as it is in an unusable state until the whole thing is appealed to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission. The Mayor Richard Collins declared council can't issue a permit once a stop work order is issued, this is the fault of his arch enemy the former Mayor( Mrs McGowan who unseats him every second election) because she should have changed the by-law to say they specifically issue a permit. What a fucking bunch of tools.