Commentary; Posted: 7/11/07
What a city ordinance can and should do
John Freed
Guest Columnist
I attended and spoke at the Forest Lake Planning Commission public hearing June 27th regarding a proposed ordinance regulating outdoor wood furnaces. The hearing was relatively well attended and there were many good comments and suggestions made by both the public and the commission members.
There was a motion approved to have an ordinance but a strong recognition that the draft presented needed considerable work to be practical and not overly restrictive.
One of the provisions in the draft is to prohibit the furnaces in the urban residential zone and permit them only in conservancy, agriculture, and rural residential zones with the potential additions of the business and industrial districts.
Commission member Kathy Kuehn asked presenter and Community Development Director and Zoning Administrator Doug Borglund if the ordinance should say that the furnaces were not permitted in the residential zone rather than stating the zones in which they were permitted.
Borglund responded that ordinances are generally written to say what people can do, not what they cannot do. This may seem like a subtle difference, but it is not.
One of the main tenets in this country is that the people have the liberty to do anything they want unless it is restricted by law.
This is tremendously different than the political philosophy that the people have only those rights granted to them by their government.
A good example is that we in the U.S. are able to travel anywhere in the country unless restricted rather than the government telling us where we may travel.
The idea of government, including that of Forest Lake, permitting activities rather than restricting them has crept into many city ordinances and regulations.
I urge the city staff, planning commission, and city council to reject this philosophy as they consider the wording in this and other ordinances and regulations.
It does not have a place in a free society.
John Freed is a Forest Lake business owner and a member of the Lakes Area Business Association.
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