Editorial: Must we always make a law?
Our suburbs have to regulate a lot of things to keep people safe, life orderly, costs under control and government transparent. That means a whole lot of ordinances and codes for local trustees to approve and municipal employees to enforce.
But does every concern that arises have to turn into a law? Sometimes it seems so, what with the prevalence of regulations on grass height, fence styles, deadlines for dragging your garbage can back from the curb and more.
It doesn't always have to be like that, does it?
There must be other ways to address some issues, especially those that involve just a few people. In some cases, a focus on neighborhood conflict resolution might head off a chorus of "there oughta be a law."
Two examples come to mind.
One, in Elk Grove Village, would outlaw squirrel feeders. The idea arose from a dispute among neighbors, one who has a squirrel feeder hanging from a tree and another who apparently objects.
The village board is considering adding hanging squirrel feeders to its list of banned items. Feeding wildlife on the ground, with the exception of birds, already is illegal, they say.
With no means to sweep every backyard in the village for squirrel feeders, officials could enforce an ordinance like the one proposed only by reacting to complaints. But do towns need to get involved in such small arguments among neighbors?
What if the village instead encouraged residents to solve such disputes themselves, perhaps simply referring people to conflict resolution strategies? Beaverton, Oregon, is one town that has a conflict resolution game plan listed at BeavertonOregon.gov/DisputeResolution.
Our second example is in Mount Prospect, where residential gravel driveways have been against the law for more than a decade but a deadline for complying passed Jan. 1, as Columnist Kerry Lester writes today.
Village officials say gravel can get into roads and sewers, but owners of the handful of remaining residential gravel driveways object to the high cost of paving. We're sympathetic to both arguments, but we also wonder if the need for the ordinance could have been headed off years ago with a conversation between someone from the village and the homeowner whose gravel got snowplowed into the road, or whatever the situation was that triggered adding more pages to the rule book back in 2004.
As Mount Prospect no doubt is aware, once you've got an ordinance, it's a lot harder to change your mind.
Those who run our towns have big jobs on their hands. They are responsible in many ways for our day-to-day quality of life.
It's a big task, and one that shouldn't be diluted by regulating small-time disagreements.