Get a load of this garage-sale sign that was on the corner of Church Street and Madison. Nicely lettered. Large letters. Different colors. But in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The large, homemade, cardboard sign was probably put up last Wednesday or Thursday, advertising a sale on Oak Street, over a mile away from the sign. The sign advertises that the sale was Thursday, Friday and Saturday, yet the sign was still up on Monday evening.
It's bad enough when the signs are put up all over town and taken down after the sale. But most signs are abandoned by the people who hold the sale. They never go back and take down the sign.
What's the rule about garage-sale signs? On your own property. Only. Not down the block. Not blocks away. Not a mile away.
Of course, one logical question is, how do people know not to put up signs like this? They could be mind-readers. They could spend hours on the City's website trying to find out about garage sales. They could search the City Code. There is one other possibility.
A person wanting to know about City Ordinances could take a course in intuitive psychic investigation and then know to search of the City's website along the following path:
Click on City Departments
Click on Community & Economic Development
Click on UDO
UDO? What's that? Well, "that" is Unified Development Ordinance. You already knew that; right?
Now that really makes a lot of sense to the person not involved on a daily basis with City government. How in the world is a person to know to go to "UDO" and search for those rules/ordinances that are going to trip him up and cost him money?
UDO belongs on the City's homepage, where residents and businessowners will at least have a fighting chance of learning about an ordinance before a threatening letter or Notice of Violation shows up on their doorstep or in their mailbox.
© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT
