AIB - Citizen Participation - Personal Animosity

[donk]

AIB Citizen Participation lets all share some of our funnier/demented personal animosity stories.

Here are mine:

1) Dead racoon nailed to a mailbox. Family feud for 30-40 years, resparked and finally in court over a gravel pit opening. At the appeal board, actually tried to submit videotape and pictures of eachother flipping oneanother the bird.

2) Another appeal story, because the neighbour chased them with a chainsaw. Forgot to tell the appeal board that the neighbour is their brother and that there is a long standing family squablle over the father's estate.

3) At a public hearing "there is 'applicant's' law and there is white man's law I ain't no (Racial slur)". Neighbour feud over a potential industrial composting facility. The applicant should have known better, he had a court order telling him to cease his operations and he was on the board that adopted the plan that forbid what he wanted to do.

4) Same families as involved in (3) fist fight in the parking lot after the public hearing. Father and 2 sons vs the 3 or 4 neighbours. I just kept packing the car and hoping to make it out of there.

5) Way too many "Liberal" vs "Progressive Conservative" lets screw them over 'cause we are in power stories.

Lets hear yours.

[nerudite]

Lets hear yours.

Holy! I don't think I have any stories quite like those! The only thing I can even remotely equate with those is the time that we had just passed a new noise ordinance in Davis. The ordinance had noise limits that were based upon the ambient noise levels in the area. So to violate the noise ordinance next to the freeway would mean generating much higher noise levels than let's say in a public park or typical residential area. The ordinance was also measured from the property line according to the ordinance.

So what happens? Two neighbours on either side of an attached single family home (property line running down the middle of a duplex) get in a squabble about one of the resident's snoring because it is excessively noisy and you can hear it through the wall. So the enforcement officer (against his better judgement) set up his equipment on one side of the building and pointed it at the 'property line' which was the common wall. Gave the snoring lady a ticket for breaking the noise ordinance. It ended up getting appealed much to the embarassment of the City. I think they ended up revising the ordinance and dropping the ticket, but I wouldn't be surprised if she took them to court for damages.

I've never seen a fist fight break out or anything like that during my career. Had a bomb threat once, but that's about it.

[DennisMaPlanner]

These happened before my time here:

Two ZBA members got into a fist fight after a meeting. They had opposite opinions on an application

Consultant for a supermarket proposal walked out of a hearing to find all four of his tires slashed.

In my old town:

School committee chair slapped a member during a meeting after he referred to her as a F*$@&%# C*%!. That case is still playing out in court.

I have others but I would need greater anonymity than a board like this can provide.

[Tranplanner]

Had a guy get TOTALLY bent out of shape because he noticed a grammatical error on a display board at a public meeting. I mean raving loony shouting mad because City staff were so stupid/lazy they couldn't put a proper sentence sentence together.

Not fun. But, at least I'm not Donk

[nerudite]

Not fun. But, at least I'm not Donk

Maybe that will be my new mantra to get through the tough public hearings. "At least I'm not donk, at least I'm not donk, at least I'm not donk..."

[pandersen]

Had a friend who worked as a rent control officer have a landlord come to the office and douse himself with gasoline and threaten to set himsel ablaze unless he was allowed to increase his rent above the provincial guideline.

Attended a condtional use hearing on a large hog barn - opponents objected based on odour and deadstock issues and proved their point by placing a fub of hog manure and a maggot infested hog carcass on the table in Council Chambers.

Have had police at several meetings to prevent violence.

[Zoning Goddess]

An old guy here hates the engineer for an approved development near his home so much that he has been fighting it every step of the way even though the zoning was approved 6 years ago. He shows up at all the staff meetings and non-public hearings on the project, wanting to rant and rave about all the alleged "underhanded" stuff the engineer has pulled on other projects, like that'll derail this one.

[mendelman]

[snip] I mean raving loony shouting mad because City staff were so stupid/lazy they couldn't put a proper sentence sentence together.

Ummmm.....I hope that was on purpose, because, if not, then you prove his point. :-P

[donk]

Maybe that will be my new mantra to get through the tough public hearings. "At least I'm not donk, at least I'm not donk, at least I'm not donk..."

My new mantra is "at least I'm not in NB any more".

The racoon one is ongoing with my current employer.

Have had police at several meetings to prevent violence.

At my old jobs it was standard procedure to tell the police that we were having a meeting and maybe they should cruise by.

[Repo Man]

Not many stories at my new job yet but at previous workplaces...

- Applicant asked the City Engineer to "step outside" after the meeting because he wanted to fight him.

- Psycho hippe threatened our code compliance person because she issued orders on his house. Got him committed to a facility for a month or so.

- Gas station owner came after planners with a crowbar because they were taking pictures of code violations on his property.

[donk]

- Gas station owner came after planners with a crowbar because they were taking pictures of code violations on his property.

We went for a site inspection, the owner was on the roof, we asked him to come down so we could speak to him, he told us that his gun cabinet was on the way to the front door and that he was going to stop there on the way talk to us. We left and sent him a letter.

Favourite line heard from a building inspector. "I was in the war you know. I killed better men then you, one more dead commie won't matter"

From one of my health inspector friends. She was inspecting a septic tank, the owner disliked her and started kicking dirt on her and saying that a quick hit with a shovel and she'd be done and that the hole was just about her size.

[Cardinal]

The worst I remember was the Silt Fence Nazi who spent hours driving around looking for violations, then reporting them to everyone - up to the state level - before giving anyone a reasonable chance to address them. Three inches of rain would fall overnight and a small part of silt fence would be washed out. His complaint was in before the construction crew could even get to the site in the morning to discover the problem and fix it.

[The One]

It seems that everywhere I worked out west, there were always those overt and covert anti-government types lurking behind every doorway....waiting....for the right time to jump out and screem you down as a communist or anti-american.....all because you denied them a chance to keep their pile of 1,000 tires on a residential property ! I mean come on....shouldn't everyone have 1,000 tires on their property??? Or the guy that wants to keep 5 horses on his 1/4 acre "ranch" that happens to be fenced to the centerline of a small stream, where he piles up the manure..... I mean really, where do I get my anti-american card or communist party stickers......(massive amounts of sarcasm :-} here FBI/CIA/TSA/DHS/ALL).

At least with the overt people you could respect their right to object to your face....its the covert one's that will hurt you....and behind your back of course.....
A quote from a commissioner: "We shouldn't have such a big government, we don't need all these government workers" This when we had 1 professional planner and 1 professional in each department!! WOW......

Makes life interesting I guess....

[el Guapo]

The really spooky one is where you go knock on the door of the "Nascar redneck" with 10 tractor trailors on his Residential lot and you ask him if he is running a trucking business and he says, "sure am." Then you mention that it is illegal to do so in the area and that he might be upsetting his neighbors by having all his trucks coming and going at all hours of the night, and they are tearing up the gravel alley way. Then he says, "I hadn't thought of that. I am sorry, what can I do to fix the situation?" I was prepared for a battle and he just got busy and made everything right within 30 days, and even regraded the alley his trucks had screwed up. Truly a nice guy that I had badly prejudged. Now that's weird.

[zman]

The really spooky one is where you go knock on the door of the "Nascar redneck" with 10 tractor trailors on his Residential lot and you ask him if he is running a trucking business and he says, "sure am." Then you mention that it is illegal to do so in the area and that he might be upsetting his neighbors by having all his trucks coming and going at all hours of the night, and they are tearing up the gravel alley way. Then he says, "I hadn't thought of that. I am sorry, what can I do to fix the situation?" I was prepared for a battle and he just got busy and made everything right within 30 days, and even regraded the alley his trucks had screwed up. Truly a nice guy that I had badly prejudged. Now that's weird.

THAT IS WEIRD. I prejudged as soon as I read "Nascar redneck"

[nighthawk1959]

EG, that just goes to show you that not all of us nascar redneck truck drivers are bad. We do listen, occasionaly. That was probably one of those occasions. back on topic, what about p*** fights on the board itself? We have had a number of these but not so many now. Wonder if this is unusual.