12-24-2012, 11:49 AM
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Hall of Fame Poster
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Boston
Posts: 25,142
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Government at work: Phonehenge West
Stories like this really make me chuckle. Then people wonder why governments go broke. At any rate, citizen liberty is at an all time low in this country. Stories like this are a prime example why. This guy builds this ridiculous structure out of old telephone poles on his rural property in the middle of the Mohave Desert, and the county, in a completely bankrupt state, decides to waste resources to tear it down. Aside from the issues of private property and code enforcement, is it truly necessary, or practical, to waste resources on something like this? Or worse, to toss the old guy in jail? I think we're getting close to the point where the reset button needs to be pressed.
Acton man who built 'Phonehenge West' receives 539 days in jail
Alan Kimble Fahey failed to repay thousands of dollars he owed Los Angeles County for demolishing the elaborate structure he dubbed 'Phonehenge West.'
Acton man who built 'Phonehenge West' receives 539 days in jail - latimes.com
'Phonehenge West' creator jailed: When folk art and building codes collide
The builder of a fantastical fortress in the Mojave Desert has been sentenced to jail for failing to pay for the demolition of his life's work. Why art isn't sacred in the eyes of code enforcers.
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / December 22, 2012
The bearded builder of "Phonehenge West," a structure that became a famed piece of Mojave Desert folk art, is heading to jail after a Los Angeles County judge found he wasn't paying enough toward the demolition of the fortress.
Los Angeles County charged builder Alan Kimble "Kim" Fahey $82,000 last year to demolish the structure, which included a 70-foot tower, stained-glass windows, a working windmill, and a replica of a Viking house in Antelope Valley, some 50 miles north of Los Angeles. This week, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Daviann Mitchell sentenced him to 539 days in jail after raising doubts about his inability to make payments on the bill.
The judge's decision has sparked outrage among Fahey supporters, who claimed the structure should have been protected as a unique example of American folk art. But citing administrative law, most pointedly requirements that county residents get prior approval before embarking on massive building projects, code enforcers refused to budge, a jury backed them up, and the judge is set on enforcing the sentence.
'Phonehenge West' creator jailed: When folk art and building codes collide - CSMonitor.com
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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897
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