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help Mrs. Sisk see to these plantings? Were any such possibilities considered?
Does the Town Council really fear a backlash from such common consideration of a wonderful senior member of its community? The very reason for grandfathering, variance and exception provisions is to provide flexibility so that people’s lives are not unduly or cruelly disrupted.
The occasional case like the Sisk fence is hardly going to erode the power and authority of the Town Council to govern effectively, so long as its deliberations are open and candid.
The News applauds the law being enforced “blindly, without regard to the individuals involved.” This is not the practice in our courts at any level. YouthfUl first offenders receive special consideration •• and fighter sentences, to name' aA obvious example. Trial' testimony is foil of extCrttiating Circumstances that affect a judge’s or a jury’s decision.
As to being held to less stringent standards than others, Rappahannock County itself has led the way. For years it ignored state statutes fin* an animal shelter or a new landfill. Long after most other Virginia counties had complied with the new laws, Rappahannock’s government obtained extension after extension of time. It had to be sued before it even began to comply with the shelter requirement. And it sailed ahead with improvements to its court house - right under the Town Council's nose - without so much as a glance at long-standing federal and state laws mandating access.
Not liking the Richmond regs, it took its time, with an occasional wail of “hardship” along the way. Had the law been applied blindly, Rappahannock surely would have received some punishment for its foot-dragging.
Lawyers may hiss warnings about precedents, but there are moments and cases where common sense and decency must prevail. Too much in Our lives is entrusted to the opinions, cautions, directives and governance of lawyers now, and we are not the better for iti They cannot substitute for sound administration by elected officials representing their constituents’ best interests, listening to their own inner voices and acting upon their own convictions.
In its march forward into the past, Washington sometimes seems bent upon rewriting its history. Before people start believing it, pre1900s Washington was anything but the smart, sleek, polished, homogenized Williamsburg clone that is presently being created. That old Washington was a typical, simple, remote, rural, rugged Virginia town, unaffected by city influences.
l%e creators of the new Washmgton are developing a theme park in the same vein as Busch Gardens, or a transplanted Swiss village, or Disneyland. It is apparently good business and attractive to many people (although far from all). Fine, if that’s what you want. But “preservation” it is not. And it is pricing out of existence country folk like Mrs. Side who were the backbone of the town for the past 250 years.
As the winds of change blow across Rappahannock and Washington, we can harness them to breathe more easily - or we can wheeze on choking regimentation of ever more areas of our lives. Mrs. Sisk’s fence would be as good a place as any tc “lighten up” and admit that the Town is not inviting anarchy if it recants and lets a grand lady have hei fence and live in peace.
PATSALTONSTALL Flint Hill
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