Get permission to build first

What do we do about people (developers, hospital administrators, homeowners on the lake, the Bush administration, or any one else in the future) who use the strategy of “doing it first, and then getting permission or a variance or a retroactive law passed or a pardon delivered later?”

There have been plenty of examples of people building first and then seeking a variance after the fact. The North Valley Hospital’s sign, which is out of compliance with the city’s sign ordinance, is merely the most recent local disheartening example.

Thoughtful people, people seeking peace and harmony and trying to avoid contention, follow the law. If they need special dispensation, they ask for permission from the powers that be.

Bullies, selfish souls, thoughtless me-firsters and occasionally an air head, do what they want and try to get away with it because they can, or they don’t think the community or voters or governing bodies will have the will to spend the energy to make them back peddle (take down the dock, take down or modify the sign, re-marsh the wetlands, or pull out of a quagmire war).

Their gamesmanship is not civil. Their behavior contains arrogance or ignorance or both.

Our civil society here in Whitefish and in Washington, D.C., requires us to figure out a way to encourage the encroachers to abide by the laws that we create through our elected representatives and follow.

Let’s let our community leaders and city council talk about this problem and see how we are going to deter the willful from abusing our civility when they behave greedily or thoughtlessly or arrogantly.

The apparent flagrant disregard for the sign ordinance is merely a symptom of the growing cavalier attitude by those with power to be above the law.

Please, city council, state legislature, representatives in Congress and senators in D.C., apply the law equally and fairly to all so that our society has justice for all. However, you are encouraged to follow a greater law when necessary. Mercy and understanding and forgiveness falleth like a gentle rain.

Thomas Schmidt

Whitefish