For a few years, Mike Haege’s sister lived in north Minneapolis. He knows the neighborhood at least a little bit, and when a tornado tore through the area on Sunday, May 22, he took notice.On the news he saw trees strewn about lawns and streets. Then inspiration struck. He wanted to help. His schedule for Monday, May 23, was wide open. And, since he operates Custom Cut, a tree trimming business here, he figured his services could be put to good use.
“I thought it would be the perfect chance to help,” he said. “I knew there would be people needing help.”
[...]
What happened next shocked Haege.
h/t Paul H.
Ya know, it's almost enough to make you wonder whether destruction and suffering are parts of their plan.
I used to think that the American mid-West was the last repository of common sense in that country. After reading this story, I guess not. I will strike Minneapolis off my list of cities to visit in future.
Just another reason to Trim and Shread as many levels of bureaucracy as possible in the next few years.
Looks like Minneapolis has one too many police officers and one too many city inspectors.
Never try to do anything good in a communist run city. Captain Capitalism lives there and has told us about that place. Communism/socialism/liberalism is a mental disorder and this story is just more evidence of that fact.
I used to support the police. After about a thousand examples of this kind of idiocy I realize they're no better than any other big gov union clock-watchers.
We had a similar situation here in Vancouver. A major Casino wanted to expand which would have put extra MILLIONS in the city(and provincial) coffers every year. A real cash cow.Money that could go to social programs. But the lefties got involved and convinced the lefty city council NOT to allow the expansion.
My attitude? Don't come looking to me for donations for homelessness, etc. You turned down millions of dollars every year so don't ask for mine.
Same thing happened a few years ago when a group of "strippers" raised money for the Walk for Breat Cancer. They wouldn't accept the money. Oh, the irony.
As the saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished."
I guess the powers that be can keep the people under control any way they choose.
Ten years of putting police on pedestals, and calling them heroes, has had quite an effect. Combine that with an anti-business, left leaning bureacracy, and see what you get.
Either the mayor or an alderman or two has a friend or relitive in the tree removel business and this fellow was stealing his taxpayer funded money from him.
It is a natural reaction to want to help people out. The first people in New Orleans were Texas church groups with food, water and blankets.
There seems to be a concious decision that the State has to be further entrenched. If a liability waiver was signed and the homeowners had said no monies had been paid it should have been the end of it. And really who cares if he was charging or not?
Git 'er done.
Either the mayor or an alderman has a friend or relitive in the tree removel business and this fellow is seen as stealing taxpayer money from him.
All of the above.
It has been my experience that the more levels of bureaucrats there are, the more you run into this type of ostentatious brain dead official.
Ah Yes Ken - that is why the Wheat board, Egg board and Milk board need to cease and desist.
Americans don't need 2A anymore, all the fuss about it is a farce. Just quit, folks, bend over and relax.
Simple explanation - this volunteer was doing for FREE what the civic "workers" union regarded as THEIR high paying, union-protected job, so he had to be stopped. The unionized cops helped out the unionized bureaucrat. That's how "public worker union logic" works; just THAT simple.
Ted High and Davers6 nail it.
Davers6 hits it. It's just unions protecting "their" ground.
This kind of news turns my stomach. When a good man like Mike is fined instead of thanked by the cilly servants who work for him; then something is horribly wrong. Those citizens, whom Mike was helping, should raise a big stink about this and take the cilly servants to court. Fine the cillly servants and extend the case to the head honcho of the cilly servants. Pay should be docked and the lazy useless cilly servants, who were not helping, should be fined several weeks of volunteer work for the citizens that they were working against. America must turn those tables against the coup that is being attempted. Making the life of people who work for the evil side nasty and difficult is the only way out. The best defense is a strong offense.
The cilly servants in Canada should be treated the same. The woman page in the "Stop Harper" incident comes to mind - she should not be looking for a new job yet, she should be working for free for a few weeks cleaning public washrooms or picking up garbage.
So you have a volunteer helping out after a tornado, and then you have paid city employees spending hours of their time not providing assistance to the taxpayers they work for, but preventing such assistance.
American is getting more insane by the day.
Mark
"Davers6 hits it. It's just unions protecting "their" ground."
Underneath a layer of.........a petty bureaucrat simply power-tripping.
Another fine example of government involved in something beyond the bounds of legitimacy. Imagine the carnage and chaos if a municipality allowed unlicensed tree pruning services to run rampant.
This appears to be Custom Cut's website:
http://www.treefaller.com/index.html
Might be a nice gesture to send them an email in support. Or maybe a PayPal donation for the idiotic $275 fine they've received.
Remember, folks. State is force.
Moronic Minneapolis!
It wasn't like this in the past. (I know. I'm from Rochester.)
What has happened to the good-natured, honest, hard-working, neighborly Minnesotans that I knew in my childhood??
I'm saddened.
Another fine example of government involved in something beyond the bounds of legitimacy. Imagine the carnage and chaos if a municipality allowed unlicensed tree pruning services to run rampant.
Posted by: John Chittick at June 6, 2011 11:30 AM
Truth, John. When will we ever hear a politician run on a platform of reducing regulations and the size of government? Well, I suppose we hear it all the time during campaigns (from center-right parties), but rarely see it in action.
A personal example: every year I am forced to cough up 35 bucks to the City of Mission to "register" my dog. Never mind I had my dog's ear tattooed when he was a pup for identification purposes. It matters not. I still need to register the dog and get an "official" I.D. number from the city. A one-time fee I could understand -- IF the dog isn't tattooed. But, every stinking year? My small protest is to write "Dog License Fee Shakedown" in the memo portion of my cheque. Because, it really is little more than a cash shakedown that serves no legitimate purpose.
Not only do I get an invoice in the mail, you'd better believe it's followed up by a bylaw officer knocking at the door a few weeks later. Nothing but make work.
The bureaucrat's enabling excuse is liability insurance and credentialed expertise to operate power equipment. Betcha!!!
Stupid as this sounds, I'll put in one note for the other perspective on this: The regulations are in place, among other reasons, to prevent profiteering in disaster zones. Pretending to be a "volunteer" and taking money "under the table" and undercutting the official service providers, by not paying their licensing fees and being able to get there quicker than they could, is exactly the sort of thing a profiteer might do. (And the people you help have every incentive to agree with your scam and claim you're an unpaid volunteer, because they're still getting your services faster and/or cheaper than the official service can provide it.)
Haege evidently has no problem with regulations like these in principle, after all, as he benefits from them in other towns and recognized the need to sign a waiver for charging. (For all the good the Urban League does, they're a private non-profit organization; why didn't he call City Hall?) If the city inspector simply chose not to believe him, that's her judgement call; it was an incorrect and stupid call in this instance, but that doesn't mean making such judgement calls at all is a bad thing.
Disaster profiteers *do* exist, and they *do* try to get away with their actions by pretending they're volunteers; and inspectors who fail to catch such things lose their jobs, so it's no surprise to me they err on the side of the rules when they're not certain.
This mentality is inching its way into our municipal structures in BC, too. I see it at work. (Rules that make no sense other than as a way to assert and maintain control of others.) Layer upon layer of stifling regulations. Common sense is just another word for 'disobedience' to the powers that be. And I'm living in the sticks!
In case one hasn't noticed bureaurats answer to no one, they get to act like the SSS and we have no recourse to deal with their power tripping. Frankly city inspectors need to be stripped of their police powers, in Canada and in the west.
Horny Toad, I understand why people living and working in downtown Vancouver would not want a mega casino located there, potential revenues notwithstanding. The downtown area has changed for the worse enough already.
Frankly city inspectors need to be stripped of their police powers, in Canada and in the west.
Posted by: Rose at June 6, 2011 12:51 PM
City inspectors, for a time at least, actually had more power than the police here in Mission. What was happening was BC Hydro would report suspected grow ops to the city. The city had enacted a bylaw granting inspectors the power to enter said homes WITHOUT WARRANT to investigate. The kicker? The homeonwer got slapped with a $5000 "fee", whether or not there was a grow op.
Public outcry has (for now) stopped the practice. But just imagine that, a city bureaucrat empowered to enter homes without warrant. Incredible.
Erring on the side of people not getting help they desperately need, eh Stephen J.?
Give your head a shake. What happened to common sense. The neighbourhood people did everything in their power to convince this bureaucrat, and their police escort, that the volunteer was for real.
You are espousing precautionary principle crap. Don't defend these paperasses who are likely defending their personal turf, and to h3ll with the constituents. They are supposed to be civil "servants" not dictators, get it?
This is almost as idiotic as the farmer being fined for pumping water out of his field, thus "illegally fishing."
Have we completely lost our ability to think for ourselves?
John Chittick: "Imagine the carnage and chaos if a municipality allowed unlicensed tree pruning services to run rampant."
LOL. Instead, the Townworks Crew gets the jump on anything untoward and just mows them down willy nilly. Because they can. (Heritage roses and all.)
Stephen J.: I fail to see how if someone is providing a service faster and cheaper they are a profiteer. If they are charging double or triple their normal rate perhaps, but unless they are the only service provider the payer can always just wait in line.
Someone paying out of their own pocket to have something done faster that the state will do for 'free' eventually does nothing except speed the process up and free up resources. (this sounds a lot like a healthcare debate)
A tree if blocking your home, you can't get in or out safely, I as a 'profiteer' have the tools and expertise to do the job all I ask is that I be compensated for said expertise if someone isn't willing to pay for that expertise and I'm not willing to donate it, then the work sits undone.
Don't blame the 'profiteers' blame the layers of bureaucracy that allow them to exist. This is a prime example of the state punishing and pushing away free donated expertise and capital (tools) in a time of need which does nothing but increases the demand for profiteers to operate.
We are sometimes puzzled by the alliance between the left and the radical islamists. We wonder what common ground unites them.
It's submission.
Voter turnout in the North side of the 2009 Minneapolis municipal vote was less than 20%.
Too few citizens are paying proper attention to local governance.
sasquatch @ 12:29, all umbrage aside, you are the closest to the truth. Without giving too many details, we ran into something somewhat similar when we wanted to make some emergency gravel hauls because of a 2" rainfall collapsing road surface spots this last Saturday.
NYC has upped the registration fee for dogs from around $11 to around $40 for un-neutered dogs.
Pure revenue grabbing. The real rationale for dog licensees is not really identification, though this is a nice secondary benefit, it is rabies prevention. Dog registration should only cover the cost of the registration. it should not be a revenue stream. There also should be no distinction as to weather the animal is intact or not--such considerations are purely indulgences in social engineering.
There is much to undo in the USA. I wonder will we ever manage to get around to it all.
"Not only do I get an invoice in the mail, you'd better believe it's followed up by a bylaw officer knocking at the door a few weeks later. Nothing but make work."
Job Creation Program in action. This is nuts.
There's a cell phone video of it up now.
http://www.hastingsstargazette.com/event/article/id/25046/
If someone provides a service for free, then government receives no tax revenue. Can't have that....
One wonders if years ago a fairly high-ranking civil servant's kid needed a summer job. But the kid was kind of lazy and didn't really want to work...so his dad made a position for him over the summer as a by-law officer. So after four years of university taking some really easy social science type of course, the kid graduates with nothing useful to contribute to society. And voila, the position of by-law officer is now made a permanent and full-time position. Do you think this is plausible? I can see the use for real police officers...but by-law?
favill
And you all wonder why I'm trying to get 3M, General Mills, Target and other corporations out of this sh!thole.
The brave soldiers who died storming the shores of Normandy on June 6, 1944 - D-Day - are rolling in their graves over this travesty of injustice from June 6, 2011.
Let us see now.
If you look at the behaviour of the "public servants", the perspective is a paper pushers paradise supported by police.
You can use a frase, police state, since there is no way, no how that the police should enforce and idiotic, though expectedly dictatorial behaviour of the local buerocrat.
If you can't offer your services for free in a free society, to help where a nature caused a mayhem, what is wrong with this society?
There is no doubt that the paper pusher should be fired, even that would be seen as being positively restrained.
The police should get some lessons on not to act as thought in police state. Wander how many bad guys got a pass when they attended and threatened a helping volunteer.
Sorry for the spelling.
Where is Bob Dylan when u need him !
I wouldn't be surprised if the cleanup crews were forced to do an environmental impact assessment before removing any downed trees.
Simple explanation - this volunteer was doing for FREE what the civic "workers" union regarded as THEIR high paying, union-protected job, so he had to be stopped. The unionized cops helped out the unionized bureaucrat. That's how "public worker union logic" works; just THAT simple.
I recall something like this happening in Montreal a couple of years ago, when store owners were threatened with prosecution for having the nerve to clean the sidewalks in front of their stores - a job that was the sole preserve of municipal unions, who were taking days if not weeks to clean up the trash.