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Re: The Calling

To: Don Mathis <donmathis@lucent.com>
Subject: Re: The Calling
From: rfeibusch@loop.com (Rick Feibusch)
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:10:30 -0700 (PDT)
Rick Feibusch wrote:
>>Someday, all of us will be driving virtual cars and taking the light rail
>>to two or three big local events each year to see the collections of the
>>rich or government funded collections. While we might have hidden away an
>>old MG in the basement, we wouldn't dare drive it because if caught, it
>>would be impounded and destroyed. LOOK AT THE LAWS THAT ARE BEING PUT INTO
>>PLACE TODAY! In some communities you are not allowed to have more than
>>three running and registered cars on your property, and if turned in by a
>>nosey, Nazi, neighbor; your car can be legaly "abated" (stolen and removed)
>>and sold for scrap.
>
>Rick,
>One of the prime responsibilities of a journalist is to Really make sure you
>have your facts straight.  What state are you referring to?  I heard the
>same rumors about N.J. and it wasn't true.  We still have the concept of
>"private property".  I think it was Jefferson that said there can be no
>democracy without private property.  I don't think there is anywhere in the
>U.S. that your property can be impounded unless it is associated with the
>sale of illegal drugs.  I enjoyed your writing but I'm having trouble
>separating the fact from opinion.
>Cheers-Don Mathis <donmathis@lucent.com>

Don,
The State is California and the municipality is San Pablo in a recent
situation.  A few years ago a friend in San Jose was sued by the city to
remove the 16 Morris Minors AND all of his spare parts from his backyard.
They won and he lost.  If he hadn't sold off or stored what he wanted to
keep OFF of his property by a particular deadline, the city would have
hauled it away and sold it as scrap, deducted the scrap value from the cost
of removal and billed him for the difference.  This was all due to a real
estate agent who was selling a house on the next street and felt that it
was the reason the house wasn't selling.

One of my other jobs is as an appraiser for the Peterson Automotive Museum.
I also free-lance. I have been called in to a number of court cases
involving abated cars & parts in both Orange and Riverside Counties where
the city was abated an "eyesore" and sold "valuable" cars for scrap.
Sometimes I'm called in after the fact and have to testify using videos of
the stuff before abatment. Most of this stuff is junk and how do you value
a four foot tall pile of "rare" mixed exhaust manifolds?  But I've also
seen a '56 Chevy and most of a Bugeye sent to the scrappers. Now we all
know that with the California lien sale laws, the scrappers eventually sold
these cars back into the system, BUT the law allowed the cars to be abated
in the first place. There are public nusence and public health laws already
on the books in most communities that are not being enforced because there
is no community action to cause them to - YET. This is not a state law like
the smog laws.  These are a number of local ordinances, some more severe
than others. To blow this off as opinion or rabble rousing is to ignore the
future. Alot of the stuff I've examined IS junk and most of these people
SHOULD be ashamed of themselves to have such messes. BUT, who determines
what a mess is since it is not defined within these laws? Is ten broken
cars and a ton of parts too much or is two complete but not running or
registered MGBs and a Sprite ribcase too much?  See you on the Funway! -
Rick Feibusch, Venice, CA



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