A law is not really a law unless it is enforced.

"We have got ordinances with absolutely no enforcement," commissioner John Woffinden said in an interview. "Offstreet parking is a prime example. When snow is predicted all cars have to be off the street. One time I drove down my street to my work and in 1.1 miles, there were 34 vehicles left on the streets."

Regular parking laws -- snowstorm or not -- require that vehicles not be on the street more than 72 consecutive hours.

Woffinden said there was one he was aware of that had been parked along the street, covered with a tarp and left for months. He said he saw it with many inches of snow covering the tarp.

Commissioner Ken Baldwin said he was concerned about decisions the Planning Commission had made and that some of those were not being followed.

"The biggest problem I see with the Planning Commission is the lack of enforcement of what we specify," he said in an interview. "We go around and look at things after they are done or in progress and they are different. That is best characterized by the cemetery committee changing the orientation of the bins." Baldwin referred to a controversial placement of large cement storage bins north of the cemetery, which were subsequently torn down after neighbors complained. They were not the same direction or height the commission had approved.

"They felt if they had come to us before they changed it, they would have been approved," he said. He said that he would not have voted for it. "We specifically noted it should not front on that street."

He said the lack of compliance could have several origins.

"It has elements of 'good old boy,' combined with 'do we really need to be that nit picky?'" he said. "The answer to that is 'Yes.' That is why we are there."

Baldwin said the commissioners, a board of volunteers, took their duties seriously and wanted to protect the residents.

"We try to consider the things that could go wrong," he said. "I think we actually try to be conscientious how we spent out time and effort."

Both he and Woffinden cited an example of a project which they considered had not followed the planners' requirements.

"There are three homes on 100 East, north of the Star Mill," Baldwin said. "We told them that because they are close to a busy intersection they should put in hammerheads." Those drives usually have a turning spot so vehicles may exit the property going forward, which is usually considered safer. Baldwin said the requirement had been ignored.

"It is just as though we hadn't said a word," he said.

Dave Cottle of Patterson Homes, which built the residences, differed.

"There is plenty of room for a vehicle to back around so they can exit going forward," he said in a phone interview. "We actually made a wider RV pad so that people could back and turn."

Baldwin said he chose American Fork for his home because of the look of the community and that he wanted it to remain.

"I live in American Fork because I like the general feeling of it," he said. "They control developers."

He outlined the role of the Planning Commission in that regard.

"The Planning Commission doesn't want to rule the city," he said. "Part of our job is to see that regulations are kept, even if that make us unpopular with developers."

He suggested an intermediate step to making sure that ordinances are followed is communication.

"We should have the City Council recognize where they need to spend money on certain things," he said. "We didn't have quite as much problem when we had a City Council member on the Planning Commission. It isolated us one more step when that stopped."