Category: local leaders

Categories
insider corruption local leaders

What’s Going On Here?

Sometimes asking “What’s going on here?” (repeatedly) can keep a problem in the public eye — when many who should know better would rather sweep it under the rug. In this case, the problem is $1.6 million unaccounted for in recent Penn Forest Township budgets. The Tennessee township’s annual budget is only $4 million or so.

Former supervisor Paul Montemuro is one of those chastising the current board of supervisors. If they’d “just agree to conduct the forensic audit of the couple of years leading up to 2008, I would shut up,” he says. The board approved that audit in 2012 but has not followed through.

Another fellow not shutting up is township auditor Matt Schutter, elected last November as a Libertarian. Throughout 2014 he has demanded that the audit go forward and township spending be fully accounted for, and has also asked the state attorney general to launch an investigation.

Schutter tells Common Sense that despite sundry harassment, he won’t relax the pressure any time soon. “The board in July meeting voted that no one of the public can speak in a supervisors meeting about the money,” Schutter explains. “At the August meeting, I informed them that they were violating the First Amendment.”

He then formally advised the supervisors that he would pursue further legal action (“under 42 USC 1983!,” pertaining to civil action for deprivation of rights) if they continue violating their oaths of office.

Let’s send about 535 guys like this to Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture local leaders

An Epic Rebuke

The Good Ol’ Boy Network is under attack. And there’s no nicey face, kiss-​and-​make-​up from its enemy, Rep. Justin Amash (R‑Mich), to his just-​defeated primary opponent, Brian Ellis.

Ellis called Amash to congratulate his opponent on election night, after Amash defeated Ellis by a rather large margin. Amash refused to answer Ellis’s call.

No wonder. During the campaign, Ellis sure didn’t play nicey-​nice, calling Amash “Al-Qaida’s best friend.”

Amash is well known as a Tea Party candidate, someone who fairly consistently opposes crony capitalism. Ellis was heavily funded by the Chamber of Commerce, local and national … and you know what that means.

Or should. The Chamber, “while claiming to be ‘pro-​free-​market,’” Ryan McMaken explains at The Circle Bastiat, “has gone after him for not spending enough government money. This is not surprising. Business groups like Chambers of Commerce are not free-​market organizations at all, but rent-​seeking lobbying groups looking for government favors.

There’s nothing new here. When Ron Paul was in Congress, the US Chamber ranked him as one of the worst members, giving him the lowest score of any Republican. In Chamber-​speak, being “free-​market” means voting for things like TARP and various bailouts and No Child Left Behind.

Are you for the freedom principle, or a mere insider free-for-all?

That principle may be why Amash rebuked not only Ellis but Ellis’s major backer, former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, as well. “You are a disgrace,” Amash lambasted Hoekstra. “And I’m glad we could hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance.”

Harsh. Though refreshing candor. In a fight over principle, nicey-​nice may not suffice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
local leaders too much government

How to Be a Bad-​Law Killer

You have a golden opportunity to help kill some of the bad laws infesting San Francisco’s city code.

The news is being passed along by the indefatigable champions of liberty and property rights at the Institute for Justice. Wherever local governments have assaulted the right of citizens to use and dispose of their own property, IJ has fought and won legal battles on behalf of the victims. Now the Institute urges us to accept the invitation of City Supervisor Mark Farrell to help root out the city’s bad laws.

Farrell wants to “clear any unnecessary laws from San Francisco’s books and to tweak laws that need updating.”

IJ has already fingered some of the more egregious San Fran laws that need “tweaking.” For example, there’s Chapter 6 of housing code, which demands that “Private and public storage garages in apartment houses and hotels shall be used only for storage of automobiles.” Thus, residents like Kimberly Conley are breaking the law when they stow their bikes in their garages, and can be fined up to $500 per infraction.

There are onerous regulations on food trucks, onerous rent control laws, a “transient occupancy” tax on rentals by homeowners to travelers, onerous dog-​walking licenses. Just for starters. (“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of work for everyone,” IJ assures us.)

The San Francisco Code is presented at a website that seeks to demystify its legal jargon. Mark Farrell’s email address is mark.​Farrell@​sfgov.​org.

Happy hunting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders obituary

The Lion of Woodinville

Mike Dunmire passed away last weekend. Mike helped me form the Liberty Initiative Fund, serving as an original board member. But he was best known as a key funder of Tim Eyman’s Washington State ballot initiatives.

Indeed, Eyman’s incredible success at the ballot box — I once called him “America’s Number One Freedom Fighter” — would not have been possible without Dunmire, who was happy to help: “I honestly think he is the only one who gets anything done, and the money could not be better spent.”

Dunmire loved the initiative process. When legislators considered adding a $100 fee for citizens to file a ballot measure, Dunmire eloquently objected:

This hundred dollars may not seem like very much. It will eliminate some people who have fringe ideas. But let me tell you once it was a fringe idea that the world was round. I don’t think we want to suppress these ideas, and I think that all this bill does is buy a tremendous amount of ill will.… You maybe will make $10,000 off of this, but you stick a finger in every citizen’s eye.…

A native of Woodinville, Washington, he balanced humility with wit, hard work with compassion. He once jokingly introduced himself as “the Woodinville Think Tank President” at a legislative hearing.

“Although starting out with very little, I’ve been fortunate,” Mike once wrote. “I live in the most beautiful state in the union, I have my health, a wife I love, and had a career that brought me financial success. I’ve supported many philanthropic efforts during my life. In recent years, I’ve supplemented my ‘normal’ charitable giving by supporting political efforts to hold government more accountable.”

Mike Dunmire remains alive in the hearts of all those he helped.

This is Common Sense. I’m glad I knew you, Mike.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall judiciary local leaders too much government

Moving Boulders

“Supreme Court says Boulder City cannot sue citizens over ballot initiatives,” read the Las Vegas Sun headline.

An important legal victory … a long time coming.

Three years ago, I caught an online story about a citizens group that had petitioned three measures onto their local ballot: (1) require voter approval before the city council could incur $1 million or more in debt, (2) term limits for members on city commissions and committees, and (3) restrict the city to just one publicly-​owned golf course.

Their public spirit was promptly rewarded by being sued, personally, and dragged into court by the city attorney of Boulder City.

I called the citizens’ attorney quoted in the news story, Linda Strickland, and we talked for over an hour. This case, as the Nevada Supreme Court has now agreed, is a classic violation of the state’s Anti-​SLAPP statute (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).

Citizens in Charge Foundation gave Linda and Terry, her husband and law partner, the John Lilburne Award, affording this small town legal scuffle some national recognition and sparking news coverage across Nevada.

On a later trip, I sat in Linda’s living room with a dozen local citizens who recounted the good feeling of participating in the petition campaign and then their unease of being sued by their own city government. I couldn’t be more pleased to now relate that Linda’s efforts have paid off in a state Supreme Court win, protecting the rights of all Nevadans to petition their government.

Freedom is regularly attacked and must be defended. Thanks to Linda and others, it shall be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment local leaders property rights

Rights Violations Close to Home

Connor Boyack, founder of Utah’s Libertas Institute, has earned a reputation combating the dangerous no-​knock raids characteristic of the War on Drugs/​People. The point of these raids is not to defuse a violent situation, but to hunt for drugs or arrest a slumbering, peaceful home-​dweller. Sometimes people die as a result.

Now Boyack is fighting to reverse a stealthier assault on Utahans — the latest legislative weakening of protections against wrongful seizure of property passed in 2000 by citizen initiative.

The changes, put over as a minor “recodification” of civil forfeiture law, make it almost impossible for an innocent victim of a property grab by police to recover legal costs. For one thing, compensation is now optional. For another, any compensation awarded is now limited to a mere fifth of the value of the property taken. Yet the cost of litigating such takings is often much greater than the property value.

Boyack hopes to persuade Utah officials who do care about individual liberty to pay more attention to close-​to-​home hazards.

“One thing I noticed at the Tenth Amendment Center is that while liberty-​minded Utah legislators could join arms to [oppose] the federal government, they weren’t nearly as skeptical of the government here in Utah,” he says, quoted in a profile by Rise of the Warrior Cop author Radley Balko.

Boyack champions greater consistency. After all, when your rights are violated, the injustice and the harm are the same whether the perpetrator is local, state or federal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.