Local ordinances are quite a pain, especially where local officials think they can encumber your deed without a contract as if you are part of some new property owners association. I have to put my stance out there that if you want to manage my property, you have to buy my property. Simple as that.
Enter this Wisconsin story, Court to reverse foreclosure over parking-related fine, that appeared in the Journal Sentinel on September 11, 2008.
A disabled man by the name of Peter Tubic who:
According to the Social Security Administration, Tubic has been disabled since 2001. He has been diagnosed with psychological disorders that limit his “ability to understand, remember and carry out detailed instructions,” according to documents from the administration.
In essence, because of a van that was parked in his parent's driveway that did not have current plates, fines continued to be levied against this disabled man. Can you say excessive fines and bail? Well that is for another story.
Tubic, 62, got the fine in 2004 for parking his van with no license
plates in the driveway of his parents’ home — a violation of city
zoning codes.The radiator had broken, and Tubic couldn’t renew the plates without passing the emissions test. He said he couldn’t afford to fix it and was overwhelmed with caring for his sick parents. The city Department of Neighborhood Services sent inspectors to his house for several months, each time adding a fee and sending him a notice because the van remained. Tubic ignored at least 15 notices.
What these local ordinances do not take into consideration is the fact that the American citizenry enjoy several absolute rights and liberties. Unfortunately many people are not fully aware of these unalienable rights and liberties, mistakenly thinking they are privileges. Because of a lack of full understand, it is making the citizens easy targets of unenlightened city, state, and federal authorities that aim to diminish a citizen's power.
Eminent domain is not just "the taking" but also includes "whose use and enjoyment of such property is interfered with" and that "just compensation" should be provided. In essence, the city should have been paying this man for their interference with his enjoyment of the property where he is not part of a property owners association that voluntarily encumbered this absolute right and liberty.
''When . . . [the] power [of eminent domain] is exercised it can only be done by giving the party whose property is taken or whose use and enjoyment of such property is interfered with, full and adequate compensation, not excessive or exorbitant, but just compensation.'' The Fifth Amendment's guarantee ''that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.'' Source (Findlaw.Com)
Now keep in mind this man's original disability that prevents him from understanding, remembering, and carrying out detailed instructions... The city honestly believed that their local ordinance trumps this man's disability and this man's property interests in enjoying his own property.
Rather than challenging necessary issues of Constitutionality an attorney paid the fines associated with the case at hand and saved this man's house.
The city on Wednesday agreed to have the court reverse its foreclosure
on Peter Tubic’s property after a prominent local attorney paid the fine, which had escalated to $2,697.10 over the years.The settlement came after William Cannon, of Cannon & Dunphy, sent a cashier’s check for the total amount along with a letter dated Sept. 8 to the city attorney’s office expressing his wish to have the city halt its case against Tubic’s property on the city’s southwest side.
I generally just want to thank the attorney and his firm for this Act of Random Kindness, but in essence I wish that the attorney's firm would have fully challenged the legitimacy of a city ordinance that unnecessarily infringes upon a disabled man's or any persons' unalienable Constitutionally protected rights and liberties to enjoy their own property. We must stand firm in all of our unalienable rights or lose them all one by one, which includes our right to parent, have property, be free from unlawful searches and seizures, and the right of free association among others.
