Posted on 04/10/2012 4:36:56 PM PDT by WXRGina
I spent some time reading the local coverage and it appears that the lot was purchased by an unnamed mortgage and is now held in a blind trust.
The main purpose of a blind trust is to shield the beneficiary from conflicts of interest issues. A common thing among the political class.
Who owns the mortgage? Somebody in city management is dealing from the bottom of the deck for personal profit.
You think they didn’t realize he was fragile until too late, but I know predators. They suss out the weak instantly.
They’re nice to you because you either don’t appear weak or you don’t have something they want (yet).
The article was rather positive for Mayor Jere Wood, whom I also know from my YR days in the area. It says Mayor Wood was friends with and was also helping Wordes with this situation. It was the tyrants on the City Council that were after him. I’m a bit surprised that Mayor Wood was unable to do more to reign in the Council.
The fact that a mortgage is in a blind trust does not necessarily mean that a local politician is holding it. It also does not necessarily mean that the holder has evil intent. And it's an even bigger leap to conclude that "somebody in city management is dealing from the bottom of the deck for personal profit."
It could be true. Could also not be true. We'll have to wait on the facts.
The fact that the foreclosure documents were improperly filled out and lacking the legally required contact information doesn’t bother you either.
The problem is with all these things occurring together involving a single lot targeted as future green space.
Zoning violations in spite of the clear language of the ordinance.
Contact (harassment) of the original mortgage holder by city officials in violation of policy and practice.
Mortgage holder sells out cheap to secret buyer.
Property held in blind trust, actual owner still unknown.
Foreclosure documents improperly filled out, owner still hidden.
Joe Citizen held in jail and denied access to courts (for a trumped up zoning violation abetted by the mayor) while his property is plundered.
Press accounts say the city has spent a quarter million taxpayer dollars on pursuing the Chicken Man. Pretty sure that was less than his asking price.
And you want to blame the victim for being unstable or uncooperative.
You really are blinded by the “nice”.
I think you may have normalcy bias with a dash of “nobody would really do such a horrible thing to person so there must have been something wrong with him”.
Admitting that such a nice small town is governed by petty tyrants with hidden agendas is something you just aren’t prepared to deal with, so you’re very busy putting on the Pollyanna polish, everything is okay, nothing bad is going on and the problem was the citizen, not the government.
I have no illusions about local government.
But one thing I have learned is that constructing an elaborate web of conspiracies and deceit out of very limited facts is wrong for several reasons.
1. Conspiracies are hard to create and even harder to conceal. We shouldn't reason ahead of the data.
2. Accusing people you don't even know of this level of deliberate evil without direct evidence is slanderous and gives scandal.
I don't have to know these "nice" people to know their conduct is illegitimate because too many actions they took are non standard and out of the ordinary.
Just start with the very first violation they gave him when the statute involved specifically allowed chickens on lots under two acres.
The very first official city action was non-standard and abusive and it went down hill from there.
But you'd rather pretend that these "nice" people are not responsible for the consequences of their own non standard and abusive implementation of the civil power granted to them.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." ...Jesus
Corruption at even the lowest level of government is older than the Bible. The very nature of government attracts the petty and the tyrannical for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks.
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