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Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 12:18:42 :
In Reply to: Nosey people, with nothing-else-to-do posted by Don Tucker in Oakland, MD on Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 11:32:06 :
Once the county commissioners/council/selectmen decide they're going to enforce the blight ordinance against you, telling them to buzz off doesn't work. You can tell the nosey people to buzz off if you know the county won't listen to their complaints. We had a guy around here about two years ago who came in and bought all the cheap houses up the Burke Canyon, did cosmetic improvements on them, and put them back on the market for $100K more than he paid for them. I actually talked with the guy for a while once. He was a big man who smoked cigars and drove a white truck that said "BUY LAND" on the vanity plate, not that it matters. He somehow convinced the county that they needed to "clean up" all the neighboring places (i.e. people who didn't sell to him) by enforcing their never-enforced blight ordinance. They had a big front-page article in the local paper about what was going to happen. First they put dumpsters out for free for the hillbillies to put their "junk" in. Then they issued citations to those who didn't. Finally, for those who still wouldn't get rid of their piles of lumber and their old rigs, the sheriff's department had officers stand by while the county had people haul off the old rigs. I doubt that had anything to do with why the sheriff lost his bid for re-election this fall, but I do think it might not have been entirely coincidental that Mr. "BUY LAND"'s own new simulated log house burned to the ground shortly after the cleanup campaign. If the yuppies have taken over the big cities in this county, the spirit of the old-time mountain folks seems to still be hanging on in the "cricks and hollers".
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