I vividly remember my kids going through that difficult stage of toddlerhood, the Terrible Twos. Not difficult for them, necessarily, but agonizing for the parents.
There were the occasional temper tantrums. But the hardest to deal with? When they learned how to say ‘No!”
How dare they? Asserting their independence… like they don’t even realize who they’re talking to?
Of course, looking back, I get it. It’s a frustrating situation, to be a two-year-old. So many things you can’t do yet. You can’t reach the sink faucets, or tie your shoes, or explain to the adult around you how they are royally screwing up the world.
About the only power you wield, at age two, is the power of refusal. No, I will not eat my peas and carrots. And that’s my final offer.
As we grow older, and get beaten down by life, we become a bit less defiant… less intractable. Hopefully.
Until we are elected governor.
Last week, Colorado Governor Jared Polis vetoed HB23-1190, approved by the Colorado House in a 42-17 vote. The law would have given local governments a ‘right of first refusal’ to purchase certain multifamily properties, for use as affordable housing.
Another defeat of housing legislation this year in Colorado. One of several defeats.
We can’t seem to figure out how to get people into decent homes without making an even bigger mess of things.
The right of first refusal would have applied to residential properties built more than 30 years ago with 15 units or more in urban and suburban areas and with five units or more in rural areas. So basically, it would have allowed local governments to snap up apartment buildings that were falling apart and ready for demolition, and house people in them regardless.
The bill had some problems, however.
Thankfully, the Governor didn’t simply stick out his bottom lip and say, “No”. He actually wrote a letter to the legislators.
I didn’t know that governors wrote veto letters. I always thought they just “forgot” to sign the bill into law.
Or maybe tore it up and threw it in the wastebasket. (That’s what I’d want to do, if I were governor.)
One of the problems Governor Polis had with HB23-1190?
“The local government for the jurisdiction in which a qualifying property is located has a right to purchase the qualifying property for an economically substantially identical offer to another offer that a residential seller receives on the qualifying property.”
…”an economically substantially identical offer”? Who writes this stuff?
I think we all know what an identical offer is.
But what’s a “substantially identical” offer?
And even more perplexing, what’s an “economically substantially identical” offer? Only your hairdresser knows for sure.
Anyway, the way the bill was written, it was a hundred lawsuits waiting to happen.
But I do like the idea of a ‘veto letter’… explaining why you are saying, “No”. Everyone should have a reason for saying “No”. Even if it’s a stupid reason.
I wish I had known about ‘veto letters’ back when I was married.
I could have written a good one.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.