When the noise resolution was presented on Monday, the commissioners’ lawyer said it should be given to the planning committee. After hearing this recommendation, Beerbower moved to vote on it in the current meeting. He and Tran passed it over Milburn’s objections.
If you read through what they voted for, you’ll notice something interesting in this section:
Now you might see the term “heating toss” and assume it is a misspelling that just went unnoticed. Perhaps the commissioners who voted for it treated the whole adage of “read things carefully before you vote for them” just like the “listen to your lawyer.” Stuff like that might be nice to say, but don’t let it get in the way of creating new regulations for the taxpayers. What good is a commission meeting if the citizens have the same legal rights after the meeting as they had before?
So while you might think they didn’t actually take the time to read it, why assume the worst? I’d like to suggest that we assume the best!
Let’s assume Beerbower and Tran DID indeed read it carefully, thought through exactly the repercussions of what the document says, carefully examined any side effects, and believe it does exactly what they want to see enacted for the betterment of Bourbon County. If we make those assumptions, maybe “heating toss” is the name of a game, a time-honored tradition that has been played in Bourbon County all the way back to the time when dragoons camped at Fort Scott, and bison roamed the plains.
The game is often called “hot potato.” With careful reflection, Tran and Beerbower have determined that they want to prevent people from playing “Heating Toss” (aka “hot potato”) in Bourbon County. You may think it is a harmless game, but they know better and have made a law to fine people who introduce this hated game (well, hated by two of the commissioners anyway) into the county. It is for the betterment of the county as a whole! You may think that you’d rather live in a county where commissioners do not waste their time making laws against various children’s games, but you’d be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Your government knows better. You may just be too dumb to understand.
That’s the optimistic view that assumes they carefully read what they voted on. Or maybe, just maybe, they just didn’t take the time to read what they were voting for.
Had they read it, you’d think they might have questioned whether it was a good idea to fine people $500 for “any noise” that is greater than 45 dB at 75 feet between the hours of 10 pm and 7 am. That is a level of sound that includes things like older air conditioning units, a dog barking, a donkey braying, or starting a semi.
But surely they wouldn’t vote for something they didn’t fully understand or hadn’t read. Right?