and if the city council isn't enough of a headach, we always have the
hoa to add to the misery: copied from msn headlines today.
Wind chimes hanging from front porches, basketball hoops in driveways,
shampoo bottles on bathroom windowsills. Innocent markers of daily
life? Depends on where -- and among whom -- you live.

For the 57 million Americans living under homeowner's associations
(HOAs), these can be flagrant violations of their neighborhood
regulations, costing them hundreds in fines -- and at the worst, their
very homes.

"No one tells buyers what deep doo-doo they can get into," says George
Staropoli, who lives in an HOA in Scottsdale, Ariz., and founded
Citizens For Constitutional Local Government, a homeowner's rights
group. "It's a government outside the U.S. government."

it's really all about power, isn't it. it has nothing to do with
rights, privileges, fairness or common sense. when u realize how much
the housing market makes up, of the worth of this country, it becomes
obvious why a city would have such a knee jerk response to a perceived
problem of loss of possible revenue from the property tax base. brian
lives in one of the older residential sections of the city, that has a
well established and deeply entrenched retiree populace, that is just
looking out for number one. and can u blame em? they have nothing
else left in life to look forward to. when they croak, estate taxes on
a well manicured retirees home is certainly worth more without some
rundown junk yard next door.

at least the wright brothers had a bicycle shop to work out of so the
residential neighbors didn't have a chance to stop aviation before it
could begin.

Dave wrote:
Brian, hide the aircraft and take up making steel drums. It takes a long
time to beat one of those suckers into shape. Invite a nice carribean band
over to help you tune it, at 8. AM, on Sunday.

"Dan Horton" wrote in message
ups.com...
I hate to use the analogy, but a lot of African Americans were
against the civil rights movement, fearing that it was just gong to
stirr up trouble and the backlash would make things worse for them.

Yep, and MLK insisted that the movement stick to peaceful protest
only. The other side wanted a fight and certainly tried to provoke one
at every turn. That would have undermined support from very effective
allies like the Justice Department, not to mention the average citizen.

Nobody here proposes that we not work to eliminate the ordinance.
We need to be smart and not play our opponents game.

Dan