{"id":19238,"date":"2011-04-07T05:49:52","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T11:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19238"},"modified":"2011-04-07T06:04:11","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T12:04:11","slug":"maybe-if-it-was-a-statue-of-wellstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=19238","title":{"rendered":"Maybe If It Was A Statue Of Wellstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Paul homeowner puts up a statue of Christ in his garden.<\/p>\n

On his property<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Did I mention it was in Saint Paul? \u00a0Where\u00a0there are <\/em>no property rights<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Jesus is said to have walked on water, but according to the St. Paul City Council he can’t stand at the edge of a Mississippi River bluff.<\/p>\n

On a 5-2 vote, the council Wednesday rejected Tuan Pham’s request for a zoning variance to keep his back-yard statue of Jesus in the current spot high up on the West Side bluffs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mind you, it’s a variance. \u00a0Not a change in the law. \u00a0A variance. \u00a0For a statue. \u00a0In a private garden.<\/p>\n

Pham, 76 and a retired Frogtown grocer, erected the 7-foot Jesus on a 10-foot base at his home on the 200 block of Isabel Avenue, placing it closer to the edge of the bluff than city rules permit.<\/p>\n

“Give me the gift of hope for the future,” Pham pleaded with the council before the evening vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, Mr. Pham. \u00a0It’ll take a miracle to bring hope to the future of Saint Paul – and the Saint Paul City Council has outlawed miracles.<\/p>\n

Mr. Pham has been on the target of the Council’s contempt for private property before:<\/p>\n

No one spoke against the variance and Mike “Sammy” Samuelson spoke of how Pham was a “pioneer” in the revitalization of University Avenue. He said Pham’s statue, “is more of a garden; I’d liken it to a gnome, it’s a big gnome.”<\/p>\n

Pham’s Jesus is a replica of the Christ of Vung Tua, a 105-foot monument in Vietnam. Pham emigrated from Vietnam in 1980.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He was a pioneer in revitalizing a street that the City Council has spent a decade working overtime to destroy.<\/p>\n

Council Members Dan Bostrom and Pat Harris argued that Pham be allowed to keep the statue in its spot, saying it didn’t violate zoning laws because it is a garden, not a “development.”<\/p>\n

But Council President Kathy Lantry and Council Member Dave Thune said the ordinance is clear that in Mississippi River Corridor, a 40-foot setback from the bluff edge is required for any “material change in the use” of the land.<\/p>\n

Lantry said the core legal question is: “Tell me why this property can’t be put to a reasonable use without this variance.” She said the variance isn’t needed for reasonable use.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the City Council says decorating one’s garden, on one’s private property<\/em>, is not a “reasonable use?”<\/p>\n

UPDATE: According to Channel 9 news, the whole flap started as a neighbor complaint. \u00a045 other <\/em>neighbors petitioned the city to keep the statue.<\/p>\n

Saint Paul – the city where your property rights are only as safe as \u00a0your best-connected neighbor wants you to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saint Paul homeowner puts up a statue of Christ in his garden. On his property. Did I mention it was in Saint Paul? \u00a0Where\u00a0there are no property rights? Jesus is said to have walked on water, but according to the St. Paul City Council he can’t stand at the edge of a Mississippi River bluff. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19242,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions\/19242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}