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a staff, and from ourselves, and adjust and change the law. In this way we are much more responsive to citizen desires and the realities of life than many other legislative bodies. The sign law is an excellent example of this process of writing, trying out, and re -writing. We had the law in 1975. The law was being enforced for a year, and the council saw problems in the variance requests which we were receiving. These variances indicated weaknesses in the law, and the staff pointed out further weaknesses. Based on these problems, we rewrote some parts of the law to make it more realistic and do a better job. And before I leave these initial observations about variances, and get to the real business of why we can and can't grant them, how about looking at the law that we are so quick to find exceptions to. It's there for a reason. In fact, this should be the first consideration in all variances. The law is there because citizens, or the Planning Commission, or the council felt it should be there to protect the health, safety and welfare of the city. Those are pretty important reasons. Great care should be used when rejecting the law in favor of the exception. That is why the law, if interpreted according to the letter of the law, is so hard to vary. Regardless of what we on the council and Planning Commission would like to do with variances, there are some things we have to do and we have to realize about them. Granting a variance is a quasi-judicial act. That is, it is the act of taking the law and applying it to a specific situation, much as a judge takes the law and applies it to a traffic case, or a burglary, or a murder. The judge reads the law, sees the facts, decides whether the facts indicate a breaking of the law, and then rules on the case. In a like fashion, the council applies the law. We take the provisions of the law, including the section on grounds for granting a variance and then we view the facts of the situation. By fitting the facts with the law, we rule on whether a variance is needed, and if it should be granted. When a variance is granted, it then becomes policy --it becomes part of the law in which we say "Because we can't predict all situations where this law might apply, we now recognize that situation X provides grounds for a variance." Fairness in all considerations is the key note. What we grant for one, we must be prepared to grant to another; what we reject for one we must be prepared to reject from others. Variances can be a pernicious way of granting special privilege to some. If a councilman likes an applicant, if the Planning Commission feels sorry for another if there is even the granting of favors, ways can be found of granting a variance. This potential for arbitrariness must be recognized and controlled. Variances are a way of providing welfare for the rich, or the slick, or the powerful, and keeping the regular citizen who obeys the law under the thumb of the law.