Little Girl's Playset Is in Her Own Backyard, City Wants It Destroyed Anyway

Reason.com ^ | October 8,2014 | Robby Soave

[Hojczyk]

CBSLA.comFellow libertarians, we may be observing peak bureaucratic cruelty in Santa Fe Springs, California. City officials told Jessica Torres and Felix Miranda to destroy their backyard playset—a gift to their handicapped 10-year-old daughter from the Make-A-Wish-Foundation—because it is a "public nuisance," according to CBSLA.com.

Young Tiffany suffers from seizures and can't play at the public park, so the Make-A-Wish-Foundation gifted her a personal playground. It sits in her backyard, on Miranda family property. Nevertheless, the city thinks it has the right to force the family to disassemble the playset. When Torres approached a city official, she was treated as courteously as would be expected by anyone else who has ever gone up against the tyranny of local government. According to CBSLA.com:

“When I asked the city, ‘So where do you expect my daughter to play?’ they said ‘Well, the city’s not responsible for your daughter’s disability,'” Torres said. “They said ‘Your Tiffany is not our problem.'”

The city's rationale for ruining a little girl's happiness is that the playground area is cluttered and dangerous. Local reporters called shenanigans on that verdict:

But Torres, who’s an oncology charge nurse at Beverly Hospital in Montebello, showed CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Adrianna Weingold the backyard, front yard and the inside of the family’s home and things looked relatively neat and tidy.

Torres showed Weingold some of the tickets the city’s issued, calling on the family to remove all items from the backyard and front yard, including all playground equipment.

After Weingold approached city officials, they changed their story. Now it's perfectly fine to keep the personal playground up and running, they said—despite what is explicitly printed on the numerous tickets the Mirandas received for hosting unauthorized fun in the privacy of their own backyard.

[TigersEye]

We should bribe Charlie Crist into becoming a Pubbie again and nominate him just for cherry.

[Celtic Conservative]

Absolutely right. When I was a kid a neighbor down the street complained that my dog bit him. Cops were called- asked the guy where he was when he got bit. He said that he was in my parents back yard. cop asks WTF are you doing in their back yard?. The cop goes and checks our back yard, finds an open can of paint next to the pool. Turns out the kid got caught peeping in neighbors windows by my mom, who called the cops on him. He was going to get back at her by ruining the pool liner. He got arrested for trespassing and attempted vandalism. As he's being led away the kid asks “what about the dog bite?” The cop laughs and says “serves you right, you idiot!” The kid definitely had a room temperature IQ.

CC

[Norm Lenhart]

How about just getting her a user account on DU where her ‘conservatism’ would be a better fit?

That way only the Dummies would suffer.

[WMarshal]

I agree. There are quite a number of statist Freepers. I guess they are just trying to keep free thinkers on the plantation.

[Secret Agent Man]

actually they should have gone after make a wish, they built it.

would have loved the negative press they’d have gotten over that.

so they went after the people that make a wish helped.

[Norm Lenhart]

Check their govt page on the city site. Looks like a homeowner association reject meeting.

[Secret Agent Man]

backyards are not open to the public.

unless it has a ramp flying into the neighbor’s backyard, or has blaring sirens and lights, or like my crazy neighbor screams for their g-damn cats to come home,

it isn’t a public nuisance.

[Secret Agent Man]

good thing you got a good cop.

[zeugma]

see you libertarians and you third partiers and you constitutionalists and you perot-idiots....you think you’re so damn smart in foiling a pubs chance thus electing rats every year.....so this kind of statist govt is what you get....enjoy...

Yup. That's the ticket. Insulting people makes them want to support your party blindly!

Can you do it some more please?

[roadcat]

Some neighbor obviously kept turning her in.

A couple decades ago at another home, I had terrible neighbors next door. Their kid kept playing on my front yard and driveway. I came home from work and had to clear his toys from my driveway. Neighbors ignored my complaints. I asked the kid why he didn't stay in his own front yard. Said because his grandpa and uncle had too much junk there (lots of junk auto parts).

I came home to find a muddy mess because the 7-year-old boy was playing with my garden hose. The next day he complained because I put away the hose. So I built a fence enclosing the entire front of the house, built and completed it in one weekend. City building inspectors started hassling me to tear it down after complaints from the neighbor. So I went to war with the building inspectors. I wrote up a bunch of complaints about the neighbor - junk in his yard, illegal room in the garage, illegal washtub hose draining across the sidewalk to the sewer, etc. Told the inspectors I would do nothing unless they first handled the neighbors infractions, and the inspectors could pound sand.

Neighbor apologized but still had to fix their infractions. My fence stayed (is still there now after selling house long ago). You can fight city hall and win.

[Norm Lenhart]

I hope she does. I get email from time to time from people her personal idiocy converted to the evil purist side. As much as I bitch about her and a couple others, they have dome wonders for getting people OFF the GOP rez.

[TigersEye]

You know, that’s your problem, Norm. You want to simplify everything and apply logic to it all. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat! ;^)

[Celtic Conservative]

Well, the fact that the chief of police lived two doors down and was good friends with my mom didn’t hurt. And the cops were familiar with the kid from numerous previous contacts. So really it was a slam dunk.

CC

[Secret Agent Man]

thank God.

[Ray76]

In Santa Fe Springs the political allocation consists of 28.820% Republicans, 69.190% Democrats, and 1.988% Independents

http://www.poedit.org/state/california/cities/santa_fe_springs.html

Apparently the people there are in love with their tyrants

[Norm Lenhart]

I write in cursive too. I am a bad man.

Someday I will stand before Gaia and atone for setting the earth on fire I suppose. but for now...I cling bitterly ;)

[JennysCool]

The point has to be made, especially this election, though: GOP-e and RINOs can at least be reasoned with, and occasionally will vote sanely. Democrats CANNOT be reasoned with, PERIOD, and almost NEVER vote sanely. It's getting late, and facts have to be faced. No matter how lousy the other candidate might be, DO NOT LET THE DEMOCRAT BE ELECTED!

[TigersEye]

Someday I will stand before Gaia and atone for setting the earth on fire I suppose.

Well...

Need a match?

[TexasTransplant]

Was a POS Home Owners Association involved?

Any one IGNORANT enough to purchase any property that has a HOA ... sheesh

Stupid is as Stupid does

Pity the kid

TT

[Political Junkie Too]

Something tells me that the "public nuisance" was that the PC officials felt that the other children would feel left out because it wasn't fair that this girl had her own private playground and the others had to use the public park.

-PJ