Oddball Update

Not ours, at least. This time, it’s an HOA in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, which has ordered resident Lisa Jensen to take down her holiday wreath that’s shaped like a peace symbol (pictured at right). The association is using a covenant that bars signs “that can be considered divisive,” after a handful of residents actually complained about the wreath.

Some of the complainers seemed disturbed that the peace symbol was really a subliminal way of dissing the war in Iraq. (Yeah, like that war is really working so well right now.) Others, though, were upset because they saw the peace sign as “a symbol of Satan.” Uh, maybe they’re thinking about a pentagram? I didn’t grow up in the ’60s or anything, but since when has a peace sign ever represented Satan?

Unfortunately, it looks like these misinformed few have captured the attention of Bob Kearns, president of the association, who seems to have made it his personal mission to make Jensen take her wreath down. Jensen, in an ironic twist, was a former president of this very same association! Hmm, do I detect some political motives here?

In case you haven’t sniffed the stink of political corruption yet, try this on for size: When Bob Kearns ordered the HOA’s architectural control committee to require Jensen to remove her wreath, the committee dissented, concluding instead that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn’t say anything divisive. Kearns responded by firing all five members of the committee.

This news just underscores the danger that comes with granting otherwise ordinary busybodies pseudo-police powers by electing them to an HOA. As we are perhaps witnessing here, it can become a vehicle for these grouches to “get back at the Joneses” through irrepressible legal methods, often to the financial ruination of entire families. Just another reason why Apple and I will be looking for residences outside the purview of such an entity as we make plans for our next home.

Categorized as Headlines, Rants, Rants/Stupid People