The Yuma Zone Blog

I have run across a few items recently which I find quite stupid. I am not sure that by themselves any are worthy of a blog entry so I thought I would just lump them all together.

Stupid Stuff entry one. Victims of the recent storm in Yuma found themselves again victimized by city building inspectors. It seems that building inspectors were cruising the neighborhoods where damage occurred to ensure that those repairing the damage had building permits. While this is somewhat understandable for those who sustained major structural damage, the city wants its pound of flesh from those with minor damage as well. Using the example of re-nailing down a blown off sheet of plywood, the city staff advised a $50 building permit was required in order to repair any damages of more than $1 and less than $500. Those with more than $500 of damage will find the cost of the permit to be even higher.

Stupid Stuff entry two. A local Yuma newspaper is running a poll on their website asking if “Are you going to vote today?”. No problem except that the election was yesterday.

Stupid Stuff entry three. A recent Arizona law requires scrap metal dealers to record the race of anyone that they pay $25 or more for scrap. On the official form for recording the race is the choice of “Mulato”. Not only is the term considered as being offensive by many, the definition is unclear, and they spelled it wrong.

Stupid Stuff entry four. A local newspaper in an effort to be politically correct removes all mention of race or ethnicity from stories based on press releases issued by law enforcement. Thus “Police are searching for a light-skinned Hispanic or white male, 5′7″ to 5′8″, with a thin build, in his late teens or early 20s” becomes “Police are searching for a suspect that is between 5 feet 7 and 8 inches, has a thin build and is in his late teens to early 20s”.

Sometimes when you live in Yuma, you do not know if you should laugh or cry!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 7:52 am and is filed under Life in Yuma, Yuma Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.