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    The Tree-House is Gone

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    16 Comments

    2. BPFH on

      Oh, that’s easy. We’re TOO safe. Because of that, when Americans go looking to reduce risk, they go looking to reduce risk that is increasingly already minimal. (But hey… who wouldn’t want to reduce risk? What are you, some sort of Commie? 🙂 )

    3. Robin on

      What bothers me most about this is the Councilwoman’s quote. She said she had no choice. Her hands were tied. Why? Someone had to initiate the original rules, why couldn’t they get changed? So once we have a rule written we can never go back? That’s insane.

    4. Bob Davis on

      It’s not that they CAN’T change the rules, it’s just that it would be “too much like work” or it would “step on the toes” of someone with “clout.” One has to distinguish between “real reasons” and “acceptable excuses”. Last month we had a big uproar here in the San Gabriel Valley (near L.A.) when some county bureaucrats ordered the destruction of a grove of old oaks trees. The reason given was that the land was needed to provide room for rocks and dirt cleaned out of a “debris basin” that catches runoff from our mountains. Just about everyone in the area was aghast when these venerable trees were chainsawed, but the county controls the land where the were, and officials claimed that it would have “cost too much” to use an alternate location. More likely it would have taken a bit more money and a lot more planning effort to save the trees.

    6. North of 49 on

      @Robin – I bet her hands were tied by the council’s lawyers who have said that the little tree house was a multimillion dollar lawsuit waiting to happen.

    8. Jen on

      So, because of ONE complaint (according to the original article) this treehouse is now gone. If I lived in that neighborhood, I would find out who made that complaint and picket outside their house until they provided an alternate place for my children to play.

    9. Robin on

      Jen – it would be more fun to sic someone on them regarding some code violation or other beaurocratic nightmare.

      North of 49 – agreed. But the idea that nothing can ever be done is just wrong.

    10. North of 49 on

      @Robin : “hands are tied” is bureaucrat speak for either “the lawyer says the lawsuit would bankrupt us” or “I’ve already made up my mind and you can never change it no matter what you do.” Like I said, they were probably never kids.

    11. Cheryl W on

      I predict that the kids will still climb the tree. And I predict that eventually, some kid will fall out of the tree and scrap a knee.

    13. EricS on

      @ Bob Davis: politics. They only benefit the people conducting them. It’s a classic case of “we can’t be bothered with a tree house, get an inspection team out there and report back”. And it doesn’t matter what it is, they just need to show they did due diligence. But without ever actually seeing for themselves, they put trust and merit on a group of people who quite possibly has a bias view. So if the inspectors never like the tree house and has been looking for an excuse to take it down, or that their sense of “safety” is that of helicopter parents, then the tree house never had a fighting chance.

      Paranoid, holier than thou, ignorant officials – 1
      Happy (or used to be happy), our future, impressionable children – 0

      It’s like taking candy from a baby, and not in the meaning of being easy, but rather being mean spirited.

      I say find another tree on private property, that the owner doesn’t mind having another tree house built on it. The put a sign up that says “NO INSPECTORS ALLOWED”.