Hills council debates location of day care homes

One thing that generates disdain for politicians is that they fail to measure the results of their actions. A law gets enacted to solve a problem but the politicians don't evaluate whether their law worked as intended, did nothing, or exacerbated the problem. Locally, we see a perfect example of this on the front page.

Back in the 1980s, the Farmington Hills City Council passed an ordinance that restricted the location of group day care homes to major streets. For the moment, let's disregard the obvious foolishness of requiring a children's day care home to locate on a busy street and assume that the council members at that time believed a problem existed and tried to address it. What has happened in meantime? Unaware of the local restrictions, a number of group day care homes were licensed by the state and located in residential areas. None of these homes generated any complaints to the city even though they violated a zoning ordinance. It would seem obvious to most reasonable people that if no problems have existed for a couple decades then the ordinance is either outdated or, as is usually the case, was never necessary.

The council has referred the issue to an administrative committee for further review and to suggest changes to the ordinance. What will an additional review reveal that 20 plus years of experience hasn't? The council ought to quit wasting time and money and repeal the ordinance. Also, I would recommend that all ordinances be subjected to a sunset provision. Every 10 years, ordinances should expire unless the council passes the ordinance again. This will prevent useless ordinances from remaining on the books and force the council to consider how the community has changed.

[Letter to the Editor - Farmington Observer - Published 04/28/2005]