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.
Then why didn’t the city buy him out when he offered to sell?
And who is the mystery mortgage holder that bought it at half price?
If you start getting condo and high-density encroachment into the older subdivisions (and that's probably more likely along the commercial corridor) you could see some increased runoff. But this is not a flood zone and we're not talking about a huge creek. During those 2009 floods the normally dry wash next to our property was a raging river (and got into our crawlspace).
I cruised around the Roswell website for awhile, but didn't see anything in the development plan that had an impact on this particular property - other than it being within the Alpharetta Highway commercial corridor. Source?
Maybe the Prices are just the usual useful idiots that bought into unbalanced crank story.
Umm . . . he was asking too much maybe?
There's a large (40+ acre) parcel near here that's owned by a real estate developer. The county had the idea of making a park out of it . . . but he wanted $100M for it. There went that idea. . .
I’m glad we agree on “sustainable development.”
It is identified on the city maps as a flood zone, which it obviously would be by the simple geographic fact that the lot is located at the confluence of two creeks.
And you have to admit that a fellow who would immolate himself by pouring gasoline all over and lighting it off just might, possibly, be a bit unbalanced? I used to be an arson investigator and it's a horrible way to die.
I stand corrected - I found the map. I’m surprised that the AE zone extends across Alpharetta Hwy there - one of the creeks passes right under the highway. It must go through a culvert.
Oh, good! So, you have proof that it really WAS "suicide"? Please let me know your proof, because I, and many other people, are wondering...
But he told several neighbors "this is it" and "this is the day". During the two-hour standoff with the marshals, he thanked the news reporter he was talking to over the phone 'for everything', told him 'I can't tell you what's going to happen . . . but it ain't pretty' and told him to get his van away from the house. Then the place went up.
No proof, but that's the way to bet.
I must give you credit for your enthusiasm in persisting on this thread’s topic (that you reportedly have no stake in) to insist that these awful repeated injustices against an innocent man were “okay” because a few people did not approve of his use of his own private property.
Disturbing.
I think you should pay very close attention to present and future chain of ownership of that lot. That will tell you where the corruption lies.
It’s often done through distaff shirttail relations because the difference in last names hides relationships better.
You should also be disturbed by the fact that the city jailed somebody for zoning violations, that is never a sign of good use of city resources, tying up courts and jail space with non violent offenders.
And stable or unstable, it is the government that has a positive duty to safeguard the rights of citizens and this, the city of Roswell did not do, instead they used their power to abuse a weaker citizen for its own benefit.
May you always be lucky in your status and relationships so that you never find yourself in the same position, stripped by bureaucratic malfeasance of everything you own, all under the color of law for the public “good”.
I’m with you. Follow the money.
I don’t doubt that this guy was fighting city hall for the sake of fighting city hall after awhile, and that after he became a PITA the folks in authority decided they’d win the pissing match come Hell or high water.
If he’d of hurt somebody else on his way off this ball of mud I’d have no sympathy for him.
As it stands, after reading this thread my bet is that the somebody with a little power decided he was a crazy coot and therefore they could bully him. I don’t know if how it ended was worth it (and I’m guessing he did himself in) but I can’t help but admire his sand.
I don’t know that he was blameless, but for all the times in my life I’ve wanted to punch an officious jerk in the nose but just smiled instead...well, I can’t condone it, but I understand it.
Just so you understand where I'm coming from -- I've played in the big leagues - City of Atlanta ZRB and BZA, the city/county tax commissioner, and even the city council. I've not only fought City Hall -- I've won (and after I won, I moved to a more congenial rural area). I have no love for the petty zoning Nazis that you find in any city zoning department, because I dealt with them for 25 years.
With that said, my primary concern here is the way this story developed, and what it says about memes, prejudice, and knee-jerk reactions.
This is obviously a conservative, small-government, leave-me-alone type message board, and we self-select for those inclinations. But there's a danger in that.
Substitute for a moment "Trayvon Martin" here. We start with an inflammatory news article that doesn't give all the facts and uses a lot of buzz words that evoke a particular reaction. The target audience already has an inclination to sympathize with the named victim and to dislike the accused perpetrators, so they all go, "Yeah!" The accusations become wilder and wilder, to the point of organized conspiracies and even murder.
Then somebody says, "wait a minute, I know somebody in the neighborhood and this isn't how she says it went down." The response: "This is all a conspiracy. All government officials are conspiring to steal this guy's land. The congressman is in on it too because his wife's on city council." - "Wait a minute. These facts don't line up. And I know some of these people and they're not bad people." - "You're in on it. You're part of the conspiracy too!"
It's not just the media that has memes and automatically assumes facts to fit them.
These are real people. Roswell is a small town. I have a lot of friends there, my son went to school there, I live nearby. You don't. Where you see a monolithic faceless government, I see human beings that I have personally dealt with. That causes me to be concerned when people are throwing really serious accusations around about my neighbors.
All I'm saying is, let's make sure we have the facts and that this is the hill we want to defend. If we go ballistic on every sensational news story, then when there really is an example of overreaching and government bullying, we will have lost our credibility.
This is a tragic and complicated case. There is no doubt in my mind that Roswell Government officials acted honorably. A thorough investigation will be conducted. Chicken man might be much more a victim. May he rest in peace.
Facts matter so why rush to judgement?
Whoa, back the horses up here. AAM is posting her direct observations and recollections of neighborhood discussions from when she lived a few houses down from the man. You appear to be putting all of your faith in the news article and challenging any who posit their discussions or direct observations as "hearsay" unless it' in print?
I've not seen anywhere in AAM's comments where she's coming down on side or the other, she's posting additional information, some contradictory to the article in question and it should be taken into account before folks embarass themselves or starting casting ad hominems around.
Funny thing is that I drove right by this place twice a day for four years. I've shopped in the shopping center right behind this house, and eaten at the Dairy Queen. Never knew there was a subdivision there, never knew there was a flood zone creek that ran right under a 5-lane highway there. So there were lots of things I didn't know even though I'm here -- and there are probably other facts that none of us know.
I'm not taking the side of the city - they probably messed up somewhere along the line or could have taken a less confrontational approach. Zoning officials get huffy when they're opposed, and judges get huffy about probation violations and contempt. Or they just may not have realized they were dealing with a fragile individual until too late.
But let's just get the facts straight here, since we're always criticizing others for jumping to conclusions.
The problem is that you are ignoring known facts. Wardes was first given zoning violations falsely and won in court both times. City officials were engaged in abusive enforcement against him from day one. That’s a fact.
It is also a fact that the city was dealt out a criminal punishment for a zoning violation (grading his lot in an attempt to protect it from flooding). Anytime a government punishes common sense self protection of property, tyranny is afoot. Your attachment to the “nice” people is blinding you to reality.
The truth is human evil is often so banal and pleasant on it’s face that people don’t even recognize it until they too are in its cross hairs.
Roswell first created a criminal and then it punished him.
Ok, missed that part about it being your friend, but my point remains.
You identified inconsistencies and related information that helps to point to this being more of an editorial than a news article.
That by itself should give some folks pause to reconsider what exactly is going on here and what is being reported and most importantly, why.
The level of discourse on FR is going down the tubes and if we can’t agree to disagree without casting aspersions and ad-hominems, then what’s the point of even logging on?
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