The More “Conflicts” Arise.
At last night’s council meeting the Mayor read aloud a letter from a constituent (and supporter, incidentally) who expressed concern that there was a perceived fault in the recent passage of a law that abolished the age restriction for renters of newly renovated back houses. The writer said that if granted a permit to renovate his or her own back house that the permit might be challenged because Councilman Bean, who owns a property with a back house himself, did not recuse himself from the vote. The whole thing is kind of silly because the vote was unanimous so Mr. Bean’s vote would not have changed the outcome anyway. Also, as I pointed out, everyone present for that vote, including boro attorney Michael Dupont, knew that Bean owned one of these houses when they voted and nobody expressed any concern about it at the time. The council voted to have a new vote on the law at the next meeting, presumably so Bean could then recuse himself.
I don’t want to go into Jim Bean’s family life, but let’s just say that he has a lot of things to deal with right now and I would find it highly unlikely that he had any plans to undergo the stress and expense of any kind of major renovation on his property in the near future. I wouldn’t doubt that the letter writer was aware of that as well considering that the Beans’ situation has been written about in the Coast Star more than once, including just the other week. I should also remind my readers that it was not Bean that proposed the change, it was Mayor Doherty, who, in my opinion, correctly reacted to the absolutely justified complaint about the restriction made by a constituent, Mr. Robert Forte.
But I’m not writing this to defend Jim Bean. He can defend himself and I’m sure he will.
The real point I want to make is that there would be no conflict here, real, percieved or contrived, if the town had not under former mayor Ken Pringle wrongly decided that it was within it’s authority to set the age of renters of certain properties. The restriction violated our property rights, our right to contract, and the freedom to live where we want to live. America is not supposed to be the kind of country where the government determines who may live where.
If we don’t trust our political leaders to always act in our interests, and of course we shouldn’t, then why do we consistantly grant them more and more power and control over our lives and livelihoods? Like I’ve said so many times, the only sure way to prevent our politicians from selling their power to the highest bidder is to keep that power from them and instead leave it where it truly belongs: with each and every individual person.
I don’t want to have to trust Obama, Christie, Doherty or even Jim Bean to act in my interest. They could not even really know what I consider to be in my interest. I trust myself to act in my interest and and trust you, dear reader, to act in your interest, and let’s leave the politicians out of it.
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