Free Book Offered to Maidencreek Township Residents:
Details:
Did you ever read a book, and think to yourself, "Wow, that was good. Why didn't they have us read this in High School?" Well The Law by Fredrick Bastiat is just such a book. The Law is an 82 page essay that lays a blueprint for a just society. Bastiat talks about the proper purpose of law, and the abuse of the law. Bastiat offers a method of evaluating a policy to determine if it is a proper role of government, or an abuse. Bastiat wrote this essay in 1850. His analysis is applicable to our federal, state and township governments. The book includes a forward by Walter Williams. I have purchased a number of these books with the intention of giving them to interested Maidencreek Township residents. This will be available for free, while my supply lasts. Just email me with your address (I can leave it at your door), or make an appointment to stop by my house and pick one up. My number is in the phone book, or use the link below to email me.
Some of my thoughts and concerns for 2004:
I am way behind on this web page. Sorry for the lack of communication. Thanks, to those of you who emailed that you missed the updates. Since I seem to be unable to get this page updated in a timely fashion, you can find official Township meeting minutes at:
http://hometown.aol.com/maidenminutes/minutespg1.html
These will tell you what happened, but it will be a little harder to tell what my thoughts are behind some of my votes.
Storm Water Damage:
As I write this we are in the midst of another big rain. This is what is left of hurricane Ivan. Schaeffer Road is now closed, and the streams are swollen. We had a basement wall in one house collapse. The house is not safe to occupy, and the people will have to find lodging elsewhere until it can be repaired.
Our fire department worked very well together, under the direction of Chief Miller. They braced the floor joists under the collapsed wall, and deployed a tarp to try to avert additional damage. Exactly what caused the failure is still uncertain, but at this time it appears the house may have been built 99% correctly. The collapsed wall, was under a deck. The deck was just about 1 foot above the ground. It appears that the ground under the deck was graded (or settled) such that water falling on the deck flowed toward the house. The wall may have been further compromised by efforts to repair the infiltration of water into the basement. The basement floor had recently been jackhammered out near the wall to allow for the installation of pipes and a sump pump. It is possible that the retrofitting of pipes and a sump pump injured the footer for the wall that collapsed. Remember, at this time all of this is just speculation.
The above situation is a reminder as to just how important it is to maintain the grading around your buildings. It is also important not to interfere with storm water systems (i.e. swales etc.) when you are landscaping.
Building Code:
As you know, the Pennsylvania legislature mandated that the Uniform Construction Code (UCC) be implemented by the local governments by July of 2004. In Maidencreek, we pinched our noses and voted this thing in. It would have been managed by the state for us had we decided to opt out. This code created 11 categories of inspections, as well as many other measures that are unlikely to stand the scrutiny of a cost benefit analysis. Before July the township took in an average of $3,000 per month in inspection fees, recently we are now up to about $38,000 in inspection fees. The number of permits issued has also increased, so I need to get that number and calculate the average increase fee per building permit. As reported in my June/July 2003 report, the fees were expected to increase by a factor of ten.
The Pennsylvania legislature recently passed a bill to exempt some residential construction from the UCC, however, Bob Kopfer, and Gloria Kemmerer voted (I was out voted) to authorize the Solicitor to draft an ordinance putting all the residential back under the UCC. This ordinance will be the subject of a public hearing, and I suggest that you make your thoughts known.
You may think in light of the recent basement collapse that exempting residential from the UCC is the height of foolishness. However, the basement collapse is news worth because of its rarity, and at this point it looks like the flaws that led to that failure were in the grading. I don't believe the UCC would have prevented this. It may well be that the lot was graded properly, and the soil under the deck settled.
Exempting some residential from the UCC (the way the legislature has done) will put more responsibility on the home owner. If he is hiring a contractor he will have to specify a performance standard that the work must meet. No responsible adult would just hand a contractor cash and say, "build me a garage." You need to define the garage. What are the walls like? How deep are the footers to be? What type of roof? Etc. The UCC does this, and even if the township does not place these aspects of residential construction back under the UCC, you may specify the UCC in your contract with the builder. If the UCC specifies a garage construction that you do not want, you will be at liberty to specify a different code, or use your own specification. This assumes (of coarse) that the supervisors don't remove the liberty the Pennsylvania legislature has restored.
Paid for by Roy Timpe