Alan Jenkins of The Waxhaw Exchange has a piece on some public opposition to the proposed historic district and the creative way they're avoiding the town's would-be punitive punishment.
A group of homeowners are protesting Waxhaw’s proposed historic district with a large banner sign which reads “Waxhaw Tea Party against local historic district. Please help!”Read the whole piece for all the details.
The banner, however, violates the town’s sign ordinance, and after a warning and a 15-day period to fix the problem, the property owner where the sign hangs can be fined $500 a day, according to a letter sent to Shell Holston.
Holston, owner of Waxhaw’s historic hotel located on North Main Street, had until today to remove the banner from her front porch.
To circumvent the problem, historic home owners hang the sign until the day the fine would kick in, and then move it to another person’s property.
The most interesting part of the article is not what's in it (although it's definitely a great story), but what is missing. Alan Jenkins just gives the reader a vague overview of why certain owners in the proposed historic district are chafing at the town's plans. The current draft (6/30 draft) of the plan is available on the town's website and failing that, my post with the nitty-gritty of the current draft is here.
Given the specifics of what the WHPC will have control over, I'm somewhat surprised Alan didn't share some specifics of what got the subjects of his article so worked up. Perhaps space was limited? Or perhaps he was inherently agreeing with them? Or perhaps that's for another upcoming story?
Given the Waxhaw Exchange's lack of coverage of the historic district proposal to this point (is this their first article on the proposal or have I missed their earlier pieces?), it would've been nice to see a little more details. Maybe he could make it the topic of one of his weekly editorials.
* On another note, $500 dollars a day for violating the sign ordinance? Seems awfully excessive, especially in comparison to the penalty for violating the new animal ordinance, which starts at $10. Does anyone else find it interesting that the penalty for violating the speech-restricting ordinance starts at $500 while the penalty for violating the public safety ordinance starts at a mere $10 and maxes out at $50?
* And I'd like to take small issue with town planner Katie Ross's quote in the article.
“You only hear from people who aren’t in favor,” Ross said. “People tend not to get involved unless they aren’t in favor.”I think she's leaving out a large subset of people. There's people in favor, people against, and a far greater number of people who either don't follow local politics, know nothing about the proposal or so little as to not have it on their radar. She seems to be suggesting (based on the quote provided) that all those who haven't vocally come out against the plan are tacitly agreeing to it. This seems like a rather generous assumption to make.
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