“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.” Leo Tolstoy
A City council, in passing an ordinance, is acting as a legislative body making laws which govern the citizens of its city. Resident Mike Murtha has serious concerns about the way things are being done regarding City ordinances in Pleasant View. According to Mayor Douglas Clifford, the City administration made a “strategic plan to be friendlier” as a city a few years ago. This is illustrated by P.V.C. Community Development Director Bruce Talbot’s claim that the City hasn’t issued citations for noncompliance with ordinances at all in the 7 years he has been serving in his position. Mr. Murtha fears that the number of ordinances being written and maintained on the books are in place to justify man-power, but aren’t being enforced. He says, “If you are the unlucky recipient, and being subjected to an ordinance violation, the Mayor basically says, “tough.” Murtha asserts that the City administration works for the citizens as public servants, yet they ignore the concerns of the citizens in refusing to enforce and often even respond to legitimate problems. He points to the salaries and cost of keeping a police force, code enforcement officer, and Animal Control Officer, and feels it is a waste of tax payer money to instruct them to “not do their job.”
Councilman Toby Mileski believes the City would be wiser to take the responsibilities of the Code Enforcement Officer/ Building Inspector/Subdivision Development Inspector and pay and outside firm to take care to the Inspector portions of the job and eliminate the Code Enforcement section. He points to the fact that last fiscal year, only 30-33 alleged violations were even dealt with under this department. (Again, none of these ended up with any legal action being taken.) Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” Rotten ordinances which are never enforced may remain in place for decades, perhaps even being selectively enforced.
All of this got me thinking about the proper role of government in our daily lives. According to one estimate, the average American commits three felonies a day. (reason.com) The following quotes are real food for thought:
“If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.” (Winston Churchill)
“If ignorance of the law is no excuse, then every American citizen- literally, every single one- is ignorant and in peril, for nobody can know all the laws that govern their behavior.” (Edwin Meese III, Attorney General under President Reagan)
“Most conduct is guided by norms rather than by laws. Norms are voluntary and are effective because they are enforced by peer pressure.” (Paul Collier)
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.” (Henry David Thoreau)
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” (Plato)
I am of the belief that there are about 4,000 times too many laws, and that if it isn’t for the safety and well-being of one’s fellow citizens, and therefore, worth enforcing, it shouldn’t be drafted in the first place. I am aware that it would be a huge undertaking for any city that has been around for very many years to “clean the books” as they say, but I think it is a project that is well worth it. The mere existence of ‘rotten ordinances’ can lead to selective enforcement and a myriad of other problems. I close with one last quote by Henry David Thoreau: “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them...?”
