On Sept. 21, I sent a GLOBAL MESSAGE out into cyberspace. Some of the returns were especially interesting, and I want to share them here:
Pete, I thought I had written a letter about your garden before, maybe I did, maybe it wasn't good enough to be published on that page of your's .. anyways, I maybe a fucking anglo-saxon puritan (thanks Antonio .. your way with the english language is just something to be revelled in !!!! oh and btw, I love our water-guzzling lawns, you know like in MY England ) .... but I have been privileged enough to be in your garden and quite frankly it is one of the most beautiful and natural gardens I have ever seen. Neill and I just can't see the problem that your city council is having with it. I know what we say won't make any difference, except we support you and think it's great you really believe in fighting for you rights. We look forward to visiting you again in April. Charlotte & Neill
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Dear Mr. Rashkin,
I found your garden yard as offensive as a lush oasis in a sterile desert. That is, it appealed to me like a breath of fresh air and life and artistic beauty amid sterile conformity. Alas, you've run afoul of land use zoning conformist police. I am copying this reply note to some libertarian, green and georgist associates who may be able to help you directly or refer you to someone who can. Some are in the CA area. You have a most interesting case where libertarianism, georgism and environmentalism coincide. Regards, --Chris T. |
Dear Mr. Rashkin,
My first reaction to your message was to wonder how you got my address, but I read it and visited your website and decided to chip in my two cents' worth because I believe your case is important. Chiapas, Burma, East Timor, the war on drugs and the prison-industrial complex are obviously larger and more glamorous issues, but your case hits much closer to home for most of us. Although I live fairly far away, in a different country, I see yours as an issue that is local to us all. Responding to it is therefore a part of acting locally even as I try to think globally. I wish you the best of everything and would be proud to join your email advisory committee if I can be of any help. A note about myself-- I am the product of a very wasp-ish New England prep school upbringing who has stumbled through my life trying to gain some wisdom. Late in life, I became a lawyer but quit after 8 years in disgust at the legal systems' disinterest in justice and at the antics of my fellow lawyers. I am still not sure if I should be trying to achieve something through environmental or human rights law, but my gut tells me that that is not my role this lifetime. Following is a letter I am sending to your city council. All the Best, --Caspar Davis |
Mr. Rashkin: This is not a small issue. The big issue here is how people should live -- lives full of concrete, or in a greener environment. It shows up in the use of asphalt, not grass, for children's playgrounds, and herbicide, not mulching, to keep weeds down. I sympathize with your plight. Recently, the former Texaco refinery was fined a measly $700,000 for discharging 2m. gallons of toxic waste a day into the harbor. Yet they bring the full force of the law down on those seeking only to live in a greener environment. You should talk to the ACLU, which has gotten involved in the much less defensible case of Elena Zagustin down in Huntington Harbour. There are resources and remedies available to you, I hope you make use of them. My first guess: a selective enforcement lawsuit against the GP. --Doug Korthof |
Hi Peter-boy are you getting screwed---I have to admit that before I saw the pictures I just assumed that you had simply let the weeds and grass grow as to be messy--however, you yard looks beautiful and very neat and tidy (I think, though, you are going to have problems later as it gets overcrowded and each plant is fighting for water and space and may die off) Anyway, what you should do is go to every neighbor not only on your block but also in the surrounding neighborhood and ask for their opinion----if you get a lot of good feedback, you might ask them to sign a petition and then, perhaps fight the city--but if you get negative feedback, it may not be worth the effort or money--not because they are right but because they will win. You might ask local landscapers to give an opinion also. Brian'''s letter was extremely well written but he doesn't live in carson and I don't think the city will care about his opinion. You might ask members of the city council to take a look also and get their feedback. Anyway, goodluck--I can write a letter to the city for you but frankly, I don't think they will be impressed with out of town opinions. --Beverly |
Join the club....I've got to go to Court on October 20 to answer a ticket
for "Weeds over 12" and am being threatened with other code violation tickets! Sadly the neighbors' and realtors' "standards" are hard to fight, particularly if they are so lucky as to get them translated into city ordinances!! --Bruce Hunter, Dallas |
A municipal code that addresses lawn conformity is a good example of a group
of officials with too much time on their hands, and their heads clearly as far
inserted up their asses as they could put them. Municipal codes were meant to
restrict the use of property to that which it was zoned for and to prevent
hazards to the surrounding community. If your neighbors don't like the color
of your paint, is this a hazard to them?
As I have been to your neighborhood on countless occasions, I have noticed the surrounding freeways, gas stations, oil refineries, and even bars on property windows. I think that if the community really wanted to improve itself, it would be considering the type of gardens that you have as barriers to the freeways. Bamboo being much nicer to look at than huge brick walls. The natural photosynthesis of plants and trees to combat the noxious fumes of the refinery and gas station and the total contrast of green versus concrete and asphalt that make most neighborhoods look like prison camps. Stand by your rights, and sue the city to change the law. This is a free country not a totalitarion regime that stifles creativity and free exprssion. --Mike |
Peter, hi, I've got a lot of different thoughts about your garden police issue-- but I'll try it be brief! My first reaction is to say stay out of court if possible, and avoid lawyers as much as possible unless you found someone who takes an interest in the case and will work for free. I may be wrong-- really I don't know what I'm talking about-- but I'm thinking that if you went to court on this matter it would merely go in front of a judge who would quickly make a decision, which would be to fine you. In my experience with court, which I admit isn't much, it seems like they rush things through and never give you a chance to talk. The judges are unfair and/or complete idiots. It's nothing like TV or courtroom movies. Only a really powerful lawyer can make something happen. I know I'm pretty cynical, but you know the legal system is unfair. Either way it's going to cost you money-- though who knows, maybe you can find someone to help-- ie civil liberties lawyer. I know if I was a lawyer, I'd be really interested in stuff like this, and there must be some good lawyers out there-- but then there are so many injustices that I'm sure there couldn't possibly be enough good lawyers to go around. I guess another approach would be to try to use the media, but I'm pretty skeptical about the possibility of that too, seeing what the TV news and mainstream newspapers are like, and alternative papers don't have enough power. Unfortunately, what is written into the city code is bad in the first place-- it pretty much seems to say that you have to conform to the people around you. It seems to be about trying to be able to kick poor people out of the neighborhood. By what is written there, they could keep some world class architect like Frank Ghery (sp?) from building a house there-- though in that case they might let it slide because it would bring property values up. On the other hand, I think Ghery has received death threats over his designs. What is weird is that your garden would fit right into most of the residential area surrounding downtown Portland-- in fact it would be probably written up in the newspaper garden section. But I can't speak for the suburbs of Portland-- they get a lot more conservative. I hate to be so negative, and I know you don't want to move, but that is my initial reaction-- that I would move. (Actually, my initial reactions are a lot more evil than that, but I'll try to suppress those tendencies.) Is it worth fighting for your garden if your neighbors hate you? Wouldn't the ideal thing to be if all of the neighbors got together and you all talked about it-- some would be on your side, hopefully, and some wouldn't and you could work out a compromise. But that kind of thing would never happen-- neighbors don't even see each other, much less know each other. Okay, enough of this rambling on-- I hope I can be of some support, and not just the cynical voice. I think it's a really interesting issue, worth looking at from all angles. My problem with this kind of thing is that I just get enraged, and then can't think clearly. I hope you can make it into a positive thing in the end-- that's the most important thing. --Randy Okay, a few more ridiculous thoughts. I think your neighbors are just mad because their cats want to spend all their time in your yard. When I visited, I was actually shocked at how insanely ugly your neighbors' yards were, with the geometrically shaped hedges. Sure, people trim hedges, but the severely geometric ones went out with the fifties. The passive/aggressive approach (which I'm susceptible to) would be to initially conform with what you need to do to not get fined, but then continue to push the limits of what you can get away with. I'm not recommending this, actually. My mother has been complaining about similar issues. She feels that the neighbors are upset with them because they don't weed their lawn, etc.-- they don't use Chemlawn. This is in the neighborhood I grew up in. I think it is the times-- there is a lot more fascism that comes with property ownership than there used to be-- maybe it's just due to property values going up. When I was young, we had neighbors who-- one guy just let everything grow-- you couldn't see his house at all anymore. Another old guy had broken down cars, and a vicious raccoon in a cage. They would never be able to exist there now! But I don't ever recall my parents complaining about them. Though they did complain about our next door neighbor who systematically cut down all her trees, "because they dropped leaves all over everything." For awhile last year I rented a room in a house in a residential neighborhood. One roommate's car was broken into once, torn apart, stereo stolen, etc.-- and when she called the police they wouldn't even send anyone out. The other roommate put in a fabulous wild garden all around the house, growing stuff in every available spot. She worked on it a lot, but it was really extreme. A few months later, one day a cop came to the door-- he was responding to a complaint about growing stuff partially blocking the sidewalk. Corn or something bending over it. I had to go out and take care of it. Elissa had conflicts with her upstairs neighbors, and now I do, over similar garden issues. Well, this is too much to go into now. Maybe she told you about it. I try to be tolerant where it's a matter of aesthetics-- if they want the yard to look like a Taco Bell parking lot, that's their right. But it's a constant source of irritation. You might be able to find some classic writing on the subject of Victorian vs. Romantic aesthetics-- I can't come up with any offhand. This is when I feel really dumb-- I've read so little Thoreau even, or Emerson, and I should have all of this at my fingertips. I'm feeling like I need to take a year off of everything and just read, but that's not going to happen. randy |
Dear Peter, I've just reviewed your message and looked at the pictures as well as accessed the city of Carson's e-mail site. It's interesting to note that no-where in their speal do they make mention of any planned improvements to exhisting parklands or any intentions of creating open space. It's all about building up traffic routes. Well my sympathies go with you. I don't know what to advise either. From my point of view it is a beatifull yard with lots of wonderful screening plants. Nothing sticks out into the sidewalk and it appears to be well maintained. I can't for the life of me see what the problem is. Good luck. I'll try to get a snail mail letter off to the city as soon as I can. --Bill W. |
Hi Peter, from Brisbane, Australia: Good for you in standing up for what you believe - if your garden is permaculture in essence, you may be able to get some high power support from the permaculture community. Don't have any urls, sorry, but they must have web sites. Is the community at Davis, Calif still going strong? I'll bet it is and bet they have some people who would support you. Since I don't live in the US and have never been there, a letter from me won't carry much weight, which is why I'm suggesting alternatives which I believe will be informed. I came by your predicament via the Netscource list. Blessings and the best of luck :-)))))) |
Peter,
...bulldoze it, level it, pour concrete over it and paint it green. You are
far too busy to waste your time with this issue, and besides, you have your
backyard to do with whatever you like...remember, what made you gray kills
most men... --jeff |
Keep me posted. The Garden Police, like the California Coastal Commission, are thugs who are empowered by left-wing creeps who think they live in Romania. --AS |
I can't help. but I have a comment- It's those fucking Anglo Saxon
Puritan-origin Protestants. They have always had that imperialist
relationship with nature-cut it down, dominate it, control it. When they
arrived to America, they immediately started cutting down everything in sight
and turning the lush forests into a wasteland. They wanted water-guzzling
lawns, like in their England. A lawn doesn't get in your way, and you have
the satisfaction of cutting it down all the time- controlling it and putting
it in its place. You cannot allow nature to take over- it has bugs, and it is
threatening. I think they subconsciously realize that it is a losing
battle-nature just shrugs and it all comes tumbling down. That is why I
celebrate earthquakes. If you lived in Mexico people would admire you for
your garden. On a practical note- Could you take it down and put it all in the backyard? Maybe they would shut up then. --Antonio Bernal |
Antonio--"Anglo Saxon Puritan-origin Protestants" are a minority in Carson, on the Carson City Council, and probably on the city staff as well. None the less, I think your point is well taken. Cutting down the natural world and putting in a lawn is an excellent metaphor for the process of European imperialism, which we have yet to deal with effectively as a world culture, but which must be checked. Have you heard the report just released by the UN, that it is too late to stop global warming and avoid the environmental and social disasters that is will cause? --PR |
Peter, I went to your website and was amazed to see from your picture how
you have matured -- I haven't seen you in a long time. It was truly good to
see your picture. As to your garden, it appears fabulous. I do hope you
succeed in your fight. I wish we knew some legal minds out here but we do
not. Much luck to you, dear Peter. --Bernice |
I volunteer...what I am volunteering for I don't know, but I trust you.
Let me know. Also, am sending a letter to Carson City. No yard cloning! --MF |
As you know, I like your garden.
If it is truly a violation of the municpal code, I don't see how you can keep it without first getting a change in the code. If you feel a need to fight it, then fight it you must; but don't take on the fight for the sake of defending your rights (ego) or the environment (presumptuous). Have you found yourself in the positon, prior to this issue, of defining and/or defending the rights of your neighbors? You are a man of great perception and strong inner constructs of personal and social morality; you are essentially unadvisable. But thanks for asking. --BJ |
Interesting garden, just appear to be missing the panda. Good luck in your
fight. --Ray |