Letter to the Editor (published in the Gazette-Record, December 20, 2023):
It might come as some surprise to many Benewah County voters to discover that their protestations of a county zoning plan in the spring of 2014 fell on deaf ears. All this time, the County Commissioners have been implementing the plan piecemeal by stealth.
The Planning & Zoning Board still exists and provides the Commissioners with recommendations. The Commissioners frequently implement them in conjunction with the Building Department and the County Assessor’s office.
Prior to submitting the zoning plan in the spring of 2014, the Commissioners passed County Ordinance 2013-135. It was ostensibly a ratification of various international building codes, which informed citizens will know are increasingly ideological, based upon faulty science, and attempt to enforce U.N. mandates on private property owners.
I invite my fellow citizens to read it. You can get it from the Clerk’s office. It is the most convoluted and sinister ordinance I have read in a long time. It was passed without public hearing December 23, 2013, one hundred years to the day after the passage of the infamous Federal Reserve Act of 1913. It was published, only once, in the Gazette’s Public Notices on New Year’s Eve with a summation that left out mention of its more odious provisions. It was followed by the stalking horse diversion of the “zoning plan” of the following spring, in which we were assured in an article published in the Gazette Record, 4/16/14, that the proposal was “dead.”
And yet, the zombie still lives.
James Stivers
Desmet
Attachments: The full text of the Ordinance can be found here: https://savebenewahcounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/co2013-135.pdf
The online version through the Benewah County “official” website is not an official copy and comes with a disclaimer.
The Building Permit can be found here: https://savebenewahcounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Benewah-Building-Permit-Application.pdf
For a Critical Analysis go here: https://savebenewahcounty.com/ordinance-2013-135-an-analysis/