Posted on 04/10/2012 4:36:56 PM PDT by WXRGina
An innocent man who had legally been raising a few dozen chickens and other small birds in the backyard of his suburban Atlanta home is now dead, following a crusade of terror perpetrated against him by the City of Roswell in Georgia. Andrew Wordes, who died during a recent raid on his property in which county marshals tried to illegally evict him, was the obvious victim of a rogue state gone mad -- and his blood is now on the hands of the Roswell City Administrator, the Roswell City Council, and the Roswell Police Department, all of which robbed from Wordes his property, his livelihood, and ultimately his life.
Ah, okay.
I don’t think you will get much flak for that now. A very few years ago, on the other hand, I dared to say on FR that this is no longer a free country and was roundly denounced by several posters. Things have indeed changed lately and as you say, only an idiot still thinks we are free.
I also said once that there are no degrees of freedom, only degrees of repression and was denounced by those who don’t understand language. Think about it this way, if you are using free in terms of cost it means no charge. Even if I sell you a fifty thousand dollar new car for one penny it is not free, the price is one penny. You can say that for all practical purposes that amounts to being free but technically it is not free so there are no degrees of free merchandise, only degrees of pricing. The same with political and economic freedom, if the government intrudes on your life in even the slightest unnecessary way you are not truly free. Free is a superlative, you can be more nearly free as you can be more nearly perfect but you cannot be more free or more perfect. Why the founders used the phrase “in order to form a more perfect union” I don’t know but it is incorrect.
A good friend of mine lived three doors down from this fellow until she moved about six months ago.
We were talking about this around the time it happened, and from what she said this article is just a bit . . . slanted. The guy was a little odd, had fought with all his neighbors, and his house was a dump since he let the chickens inside. He had not only chickens but turkeys, and he had lots and lots of them, far more than the zoning allows (I think you can have six). Needless to say there were complaints, which he ignored, and then the city and the code folks got involved. There was a long battle, he got cited, fought it, lost, got probation, he violated probation, went to jail, his house went into foreclosure . . . . which all apparently pushed him over the edge.
Any time you live close to other people, there have to be some rules so that what you do on your property does not bother your neighbors. We are not exactly Yard of the Month candidates ourselves, so I do have some sympathy for this man, but if he really wanted to live with farm animals in the living room, he needed to move to a 20 acre parcel rather than stay in a densely populated suburban neighborhood where everybody else had to put up with it.
He could have worked this out, but the combination of intransigence and imbalance was fatal.
Well, there’s more of that hearsay. Other neighbors and friends tell a completely different story that your source relates.
The “six chicken” limit was a “new law” the city came up with after going after him and being put off. If you read the column, it explains that and the fact that he was “grandfathered in.”
Knowing the propensity for abuse of power that petty dictators at all levels have, I tend to take all of the points of this story together to see a terrible injustice perpetrated by these little mini-tyrants in Roswell.
Throughout history when the citizens of a nation find that they can not and will not be accorded either justice or redress from those, Judges, bureaucrats, or politicians, tasked with administering justice and or redress, the citizens find they must correct these miscreants, quite often violently, by hanging, guillotine, or simply shooting.
From watching what is happening in our nation, a correct observation would be that judges, bureaucrats, and politicians, have failed to study or acquire any knowledge of such history.
Just how many people were in his living room putting up with it besides himself?
Article states his property was 2 acres, that's a fairly large piece of ground for a hundred chickens.
BTW, I live in a small, ruralish town, and driving down the street to my house entails an obstacle course of cats, dogs, kids, and yes, chickens. I wouldn't have it any other way.
In jurisdictions I'm familiar with, if a government official directly violates the law or commits a crime under color of law, he is personally liable, criminally and financially, not the taxpayers alone.
That would be cool, if that city was in that jurisdiction.
Word is the foreclosure involved the town buying his mortgage so they could abuse it.
Someone have his address? I work nearby.
335 Alpine Drive, Roswell, Georgia
Do you keep livestock in your living room? Didn’t think so. And why not? Maybe because you are sane? It is obvious that this man was mentally ill.
This is a fairly densely settled area in the city of Roswell proper, just a couple of blocks off the main street. The lots are long and narrow, and the houses are therefore quite close together. You can google Alpine Drive, Roswell, GA and see for yourself.
I love the country. This is not the country. Over 100 birds in a typical small suburban cul-de-sac is just way too many.
Zimmerman is is the same situation!
A former governor who's very influential and a well known trial lawyer volunteered to take his case. If the city bought his mortgage to harass him or was conspiring to take his land for a park (another rumor), they would have been hammered in court.
I think it's more likely that he simply was too stubborn or too unbalanced to follow his lawyer's advice and win his case.
Where is your proof that he kept livestock in his living room?
One acre with a house on it is not enough land for over 100 chickens and turkeys. Assuming that you want to keep some vegetation, not have soil and runoff problems, and allow some actual free ranging and foraging for your birds, a dozen or so is probably all you should have. My friends outside of Woodstock (a smaller and more rural community west of Roswell) have a dozen Rhode Island Reds, ten guinea fowl, and a goose. They also have almost 10 acres and live next door to an 80-acre working farm.
I checked google maps, his lot is bounded on two sides by creeks. That the city wanted his land for parks should surprise no one.
I also don’t think he kept 100 chickens on a regular basis. He was in the habit of hatching and rearing chicks, so for a few weeks after a hatch he’d have a higher population, but it wasn’t permanent.
But here are some quotes from neighbors, from a news story:
"He was a nice guy, but he was fighting a fight that really didn't exist," said John Cherok, a neighbor. "Sometimes you can go too far, and Andy did."And it wasn't just about chickens:Wordes lived in the two-story home on a quiet street for about 13 years and started raising poultry in 2005. At first he had only a few chickens, and most neighbors didn't seem to mind. But the complaints started pouring in after he got dozens more chickens, roosters that crowed day and night and then pigs, goats and dogs.
"And that's when we noticed the coyote population exploded," said Cherok. "It was like a buffet over there. It just spiraled out of control."
Many of Wordes' remaining chickens died mysteriously last year. He started other fights, including an effort to get reimbursed for flood damage and arguing with the city after he was cited for improperly grading his property. He was jailed for three months last year for violating probation after pleading guilty to the grading violation, and shortly after he was released he was met with an eviction notice."He needed something to fight," said Indja Cornwell, a neighbor. "He was distraught over something and he chose this battle for some reason."
Greg Foy, another neighbor, said Wordes was the kind of guy who would help fix your car or otherwise lend a hand.
"But he got in a fight with ghosts and goblins," he said. "And the next thing you know, it blossomed into an Armageddon against the government."
Sometimes they really are out to get you, but in this case I'm not so sure. These accounts square with what my friend told me.
Your numbers reflect your opinion only. I have 2/3 of an acre with 12 laying hens the neighbors love!
I free range them and give the eggs away for free.
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