Giant snowman rises again in Alaska _ mysteriously

[James (yaakov)]

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=043218&From=...
(pic at link)
Giant snowman rises again in Alaska _ mysteriously
AP 12/25/08

Michael Brasch of Anchorage photographs a giant snowman on Columbine Street
in Anchorage, Alaska, on Tuesday Dec. 23, 2008. The snowman, known as
Snowzilla to many, was completed sometime late Monday or or early Tuesday
despite city orders that declared the 25-foot snowman a public nuisance. (AP
Photo/Anchorage Daily News, Marc Lester) ** THE MAT-SU VALLEY FRONTIERSMAN
OUT ** AP ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - A giant snowman named Snowzilla has
mysteriously appeared again this year - despite the city's cease-and-desist
order.
Someone again built the giant snowman in Billy Powers' front yard in an east
Anchorage neighborhood. Snowzilla reappeared before dawn Tuesday.
Powers is not taking credit. When questioned Tuesday afternoon, he insisted
Snowzilla just somehow happened, again.
For the last three years, Snowzilla - to the delight of some and the chagrin
of others - has been a very large feature in Powers' yard. In 2005,
Snowzilla rose 16 feet. He had a corncob pipe and a carrot nose and two eyes
made out of beer bottles.
This year, Snowzilla is estimated to be 25 feet tall. He's wearing a black
stovepipe hat and scarf.
"Have you seen him?" Powers asked when reached by telephone at his home, the
sound of excited children in the background. "He's handsome."
Snowzilla has consistently risen outside Powers' modest home. His children -
he is the father of seven - collected snow from neighbors' yards to make the
snowman big enough. Each year, Snowzilla got a bit bigger.
Not everybody in the neighborhood liked all the cars and visitors who came
to see him.
City officials this year deemed Snowzilla a public nuisance and safety
hazard. A cease-and-desist order was issued. The city tacked a public notice
on Powers' door.
City officials said the structure increased traffic to the point of
endangerment and that the snowman itself was unsafe.
The mayor's office on Tuesday issued a statement defending its move against
Snowzilla.
"This property owner has repeatedly ignored city attempts to find ways to
accommodate his desire to build a giant snowman without affecting the quiet,
residential quality of the neighborhood," said the statement from Mayor Mark
Begich's office. "This is a neighborhood of small homes on small lots
connected by small streets. It can't support the volume of traffic and
revelers that are interested in Snowzilla."
The mayor's office says Powers appears to run a large junk and salvage
operation from his home. He has violated land use codes for 13 years, the
city said. He owes the city more than $100,000 in fines and other
assessments.
Powers said it is the city that has been difficult, not him.
"I have tried to jump through every goofy hoop they have sent to me. I have
never been confrontational and it goes on and on and on and it is so goofy,"
he said. "Some of it is unfounded, some is just outrageous."
The city said it did not expect to take any further action until after
Christmas.
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"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to
live at the expense of everybody else." - Frederic Bastiat