“My wife was criminally charged for watering our lawn.”
A lot of this insanity has to do with self-financing government agencies. Politicians realize if they raise taxes they’ll get thrown out. So, they create self-financing agencies. (Yes, I’ve mentioned this in other posts.) My county and city have a self-financed EPA. They created a mountain of regulations so they can write fines. They legitimize the serious nature of their work by making violations criminal. That gives them the opportunity to be the good guy by waiving the criminal aspect if you just pay the fines. It’s like when a cop tells you, “I could write you up for (fill-in) but instead I’m just writing you up for (fill-in) and instead of owing (fill-in) you’ll only owe (fill-in.) Gosh, isn’t he being a sweatheart?
Yup. That’s what they did to my wife. Made her take a morning off to wait for a judge to say, “fine 100 dollars.” Meanwhile, I get home later in the day and I have a 100 dollar fine from my property manager saying I have to water my lawn.
Slowly but surely I am zero-scaping.