This story reminds me of a challenge coin scam a buddy once did to another member of an organization I belong to. He asked another member for his coin to be used for an award plaque for that member. Almost immediately after the member gave up his coin, my buddy did a coin challenge.

He tapped his coin on the bar, signaling every member had to produce their coins. A member who didn’t would have to pay for the next round of drinks. This next story seems like what a city recently did to some residents.

Because many state and local government overreactions to this CCP virus were not based on trusting free people to make the right decisions, political leaders ordered people to shelter in place. So, having their challenge coin taken away just before a coin challenge is similar to what a city government just did to the people in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle.

After the governor had ordered state residents to shelter in place, the city went ahead with a planned road repaving/restriping project in a W. Seattle neighborhood. What did that mean? After ordering people to “stay home; stay healthy,” the city towed a dozen resident’s cars.

And this happened at a time when, according to MyNorthwest.com, the city had already declared, “parking is now free and time limits are not being enforced and people are doing the right thing by sheltering in their homes?”

To be fair, the city put up signs on the street warning about the impending impound. However, with the enforcement holiday and shelter in place order in effect, many people had not gone out to the street to even see the signs. No other notice was given.

The West Seattle Blog said the tow company charged car owners $200 to get their cars back. According to a retired Seattle cop I know who was at the scene, in a FB post said he’d spoken with one of the residents. The resident told my friend he’d been in his apartment since Friday, as the government had ordered, before the construction was to begin on Monday morning.

The retired cop passed this information on to the appropriate city agency. The next day the city told him they’d void the parking tickets, reimburse the tow bills, and have cars not yet paid for towed back to their owners. Credit where credit is due for the city correcting this incongruity. However, should it have happened? Shouldn’t this contradiction have occurred to someone along the chain of command?

In Sweden and Denmark, they have primarily allowed their people to make decisions for themselves. And, reportedly, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, is politically “center-left.” Though forces inside and outside of Sweden are pressuring the Scandinavian country to increase its restrictions, he has resisted. Our leaders, in this nation based on individual liberty, should take a lesson from his example.

Again, credit where credit is due. Seattle city government has apologized to the residents whose cars were towed. Good. The city issued a statement, “Typically, contractors will notify our project teams prior to towing cars. That did not happen in this case and prevented us from having the opportunity to notify residents once more, given the challenges we’re all facing in the midst of the COVID-19 public health crisis and ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ best practices.” A train wreck of a sentence, but you get their point.

But we can learn lessons from this municipal government’s explanation. One huge lesson from this “relatively minor inconvenience,” as the city put it, is why on Earth would anyone want the government to run anything other than its specific constitutional duties, never mind run everything.

This piece was written by Steve Pomper on April 16, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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