Family Tree

Uncheering to read Rachel P's succinct exposé in the Bainbridge Islander
of the back-biting and squalid wangling behind the hounding of Nezam Tooloee to dismantle his kids' treehouse.

The usual huffing and puffing and jargon of hypocrisy:

"City councilman charged with upholding the law broke it when he built a platform without permits on a protected slope above the beach."

Shock horror! (We're actually talking about a 12' x 12' tree house, 16' off the ground in the branches of a maple tree).

NT is clearly in someone's sights and they're determined to get him via maggots in the city planning office.

'City planner'Josh Machen knows his red tape garble: The offending platform is on "a geologically hazardous slope ... in a 50' native-vegetation buffer zone."

According to Tooloee, it was verminous city planning staffers *themselves* who ratted to the Planning Director, complete with photo (which is cheap even by city planner standards).

Sanity (and honesty) may still prevail: Sounds like Hearing Examiner Terry McCarthy brings needed common sense and moral fibre to the case, declaring, "I’m not going to judge this case on the basis of city politics; it’s improper and it’s wrong".

McCarthy even intends to view the the treehouse before reaching a final decision.