"Harry K" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 11, 7:01 am, AZ Nomad wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:33:55 -0500, HeyBub
wrote:
"[TEXAS] 'I believe controlling the color you paint your house is
basically
profiling the Hispanic community,' said Elizabeth Villafranca, whose
family
owns a Mexican restaurant in Farmers Branch. 'We all know who paints
their
homes tropical colors.' "
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5204649.html

Yeah, we have your tropical colors. What would you like? Redish-tan?
Greenish-tan? Bluish tan? We're running a special this week on tanish
gray.

They tried to pass a county ordinance that specified paint color had
to be 'approved'. No definition of an 'approved' color was included,
left up to the building inspector. There were a lot of other
Ayatollah restrictions included. It was put were the sun doesn't
shine by our county attorney. Not satisfied with that, they hired a
consultant attorney who told them "put it where the sun don't shine".

Harry K


My town's been wrestling with a good idea for years, but they can't quite
figure out how to implement it. Example: An recently deceased neighbor of
mine had (because she's dead) a gorgeous sycamore in her yard. She wanted it
removed. As she explained it, "I love the tree, I love the shade, but a
couple times a year, it drops all this bark." It wasn't a matter of cleaning
up the bark. Her lawn mowing guys cleaned it up nicely. Rather, she was
convinced the tree was sick. She consulted several tree companies, and
someone from a tree preservation group, and she was convinced that they were
all lying when they said the sycamore was behaving normally. So, she wanted
it gone. She was difficult to talk to, so I never bothered to ask if she
though the "disease" might spread to her house, which would then shed its
shingles & siding.

Anyway, the town's trying to figure out a way to (bad word) require that
homeowners at least sit through a 20 minute meeting with a tree authority
(on town payroll) before taking down a tree for the wrong reasons. The town
would have no authority to stop homeowners from removing a tree. They just
want an opportunity to review the information that may have been provided by
someone who makes money removing trees.

I like the idea, but it never gets very far at town board meetings.