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.