From the Heartland

This is my soap box, on these pages I publish my opinions on firearms and any other subject I feel like writing about.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

The little red and white house on Washington Street is gone. Now I do have something to say.

I am Angry

In a previous post I link to an article in the campus newspaper about the home of Mr Heffelbower. I am not prone to vulgarity, but things like this bring me to the brink of it.

In a follow up story in the daily Nebraskan Jenna Johnson reports the home has been destroyed by the city.

The city of Lincoln ripped his heart out

“He was just sitting there, looking so sad,” said Judy Wilson, Heffelbower’s next-door neighbor. “The look on his face would just break your heart.”

They Murdered his memories
In the last five years the house had been involved in a fire, the mans wife died of cancer, he felt someone was out to get him (I guess he was right ..ed) and his only daughter is trying to have him commited.

Were they out to get him?

But efforts to repair the home were met with opposition every step of the way, Heffelbower said. He said they had trouble getting building permits, appealing in the courts and getting the house properly inspected. Heffelbower said he was restricted from appealing to a board designed to re-evalute houses deemed dangerous, which has ruled in the homeowner’s favor. He also tried speaking at several City Council meetings to no avail. To Heffelbower, it seems someone was trying to stop him – someone wants his house to be gone and his land taken.

Obviously there is some hidden agenda here. The city told him what he needed to do to fix the house and then blocked every attempt he made to do it.

Met with opposition should be the Lincoln city motto
There are some that know what this is all about and they are not talking. Time will tell who is behind this travesty and why.

Judge Paul Merritt, who made the ruling, was out of town this weekend and unavailable for comment. Margaret Blatchford, a city attorney who handled Heffelbower’s case, said she does not comment on in-process cases to the media.

John Boise, an inspector for Lincoln Building and Safety Department who signed several of the letters Heffelbower received, did not return phone messages left by the Daily Nebraskan. Neither did King Little, a structural engineer who Heffelbower said deemed the house dangerous.

How convenient that all of the public officials responsible for the destruction of this mans soul are out of town or hiding behind their government issued secretaries.

While L.W. Hoffman, a structural engineer who has been in the business for 54 years, does not know which of Heffelbower’s stories to believe, he does believe the house is safe and there is no reason for it to be torn down. “This is totally ridiculous,” Hoffman said. “As far as I am concerned, it wasn’t dangerous the first day I walked into it. They just don’t care what happens to this house and this man.”

Given a choice between the city Building and safety Department and a structural engineer with 54 years of experience, I believe Mr Hoffman.

But according to Lin Quenzer, ombudsman for the city who attended the start of the demolition, the decision was fair and the city is standing behind it.

Note;Jenna failed to note if Quenzer was regailed in a black hooded robe and carried a scythe when she attended the demolition. It wouldn't suprise me if she was.

“The facts of the case went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States,” she said. “I’m sure if there was anything faulty it would have been pointed out by now.”

No Lin I am sure you had all of the T's crossed and the I's dotted. People in Government are experts at that. We wouldn't want anything like a mispelled word to get in the way of destroying the life of a citizen in the community you have taken an oath to serve would we?

Quenzer said the city did all it could to make the demolition safe – she even made sure Heffelbower’s cat, Mr. Lavender Teddy Bear, was safely out of the way before beginning.

Sure thing Ms. Quenzer, you were just looking out for yourself, you didn't want the animal rights activists after you if that cat had gotten hurt.

I will never understand how a city can be so compassionate when it comes one cat, but let it be a down and out human being and the city orders in a backhoe to rip that mans heart out. Aided and abetted by his only child.

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