RULING: Clinton barks up the wrong tree

Published December 06, 2004 6:02 PM CST

They say you can't fight City Hall, but fortunately there's a least one thing City Hall can't fight - and that's children's tree houses.

Scot Welch's family in Clinton proved that point in a protected, 2 1/2-year legal battle that went all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Thursday, the high court told Clinton to forget it. The two-story, $5,000 structure, which may well be the Taj Mahal of tree houses, can stay, and in it children can continue to play.

The court ruled the Clinton ordinance which City Hall bureaucrats claimed prohibited the front-yard tree house, was unconstitutionally vague, and that anyone reading the city law wouldn't know if it included a flower bed, birdhouse or mailbox.

Previously, Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Tomie T. Green ruled aldermen could not order the structure's removal because the city code doesn't have a provision banning tree houses. Clinton appealed the decision.

The Supreme Court also noted the fight against thetree house had struck a public chord, and indeed it had. More than 700 Clinton residents signed a petition in support of the tree house.

It's too bad the Clinton officials didn't listen to their constituents. It could have saved the community's taxpayers a bundle. Instead they chose to squander $30,000 in the legal battle against the tree house.

They contended their opposition was "to prevent items in the front yard that devalue the property."

They should have thought about what they were saying because they were certainly barking up the wrong tree. As tree houses go, the one in the Welch's front yard is a beautiful classic. Instead of sending a negative message about the neighborhood, it silently proclaimed to passers-by they were traveling through a kid-friendly place, which is what neighborhoods should be all about. Only bureaucrats could think differently.

Fortunately, though, the Mississippi Supreme Count wasn't about to let the grinches of this world steal another child's Christmas.