[TowerTalk] city council horror

[Stan Griffiths]

>      Whoa, Easy, big fellah. With that attitude you'd wind up with LESS than
> zero. THEY hold all the cards. THEY tell you what is possible. THEY levy
> fines. THEY issue building permits. 
> 
>       YOU got squat.
> 
> Cheers,  Steve  K7LXC
>  >>
>
>I disagree with K7LXC on this one.  The installation was performed in
>compliance
>with all laws in existance at the time.  The city has no grounds to complain
>now - "ex post facto" laws are prohibited by the US Constitution.  Any
>reasonably competent lawyer could have won this one half asleep.  We need
>to stop letting all these damn tin-horn dictators and busybodies restrict our
>private property rights more and more each day.  We're losing our rights
>because we we're letting it happen.
>
>Mike, K3AIR
>Council member, Saxonburg PA

When I learned about "ex post facto" concepts in high school about a hundred
years ago, I learned that the establishment cannot pass a new law TODAY and
prosecute you for violating it YESTERDAY.  They CAN, however, prosecute you
for violating it TOMORROW.  If the new law states "all towers must have a
building permit" then it would seem to me that if yours does not have one,
they can prosecute you if you have a tower in place without a building
permit after the law is in effect.  I don't remember anything at all being
said about "grandfathering" anyone who has an existing but non-complying
structure.  Grandfathering is a common practice but I am not at all sure it
is a "right" or a just a favor the government is granting you.  There
certainly is no mention of "grandfathering" anything in the Constitution.

If you doubt what I am saying, think about smoke alarm laws and how they
affect appartment landlords.  Here is Oregon, you must have smoke alarms in
your apartments.  Just because you were renting the apartment to someone
BEFORE the law went into effect does not allow you to escape complying with
it TODAY.  They won't prosecute you for not having alarms before there was
an alarm law (ex post facto), but you had better believe they will prosecute
you for not having working alarms installed after the law took effect.  The
concepts of "grandfathering" and "ex post facto" will not help you one
single bit.  How is this different from the tower situation we face?  My
towers are "grandfathered" but I don't really think the county has to allow
them on that basis.  I am not going to tell them, however . . .

Stan  w7ni@teleport.com


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