Eye On Englewood

Link: http://www.englewoodstory.com

Last year, in the commemorative week for the Constitution, while City Council was at table to vote on a highly unusual Bill 38, Series 2008, the new Englewood boarding house ordinance, Mayor Woodward spoke up.

“Mayor Woodward said I find it ironic that the second item says 'whereas it is of the greatest importance that all citizens fully understand the provisions and principles contained in the Constitution in order to support, preserve and defend the Constitution against all encroachment' -- and it goes on. With what has been going on over the past few months, it just kind of hit home.” [He does not specify how it hits home in this case]

He, living as a man without his children, does expound in the September 15th minutes on page 14.

“I certainly believe that R-1 Districts are single-family residential districts. That’s what they were intended to be, that’s what they were prior to the UDC, that’s what they typically are…they are for families…. I tend to believe that… again, as I stated, boarding or rooming houses in future R-1 zone districts are not appropriate.”

Apparently, Mayor relies on an interpretation that single family districts should include him without encroaching onto the Constitution, but they should not include others without children, living in another big 4-bedroom home. Perhaps he believes homes are for appearances, but not for living in.

His definition of “family” fails to include himself. It is all very confusing, as is his understanding of constitutional rights.

Previously another Mayor, Olga Wolosyn, commented during the same commemorative process that the Constitution was “an elegant document.” Both comments give pause for reflection. Mayor Wolosyn’s because she was a known patron of the arts in Englewood, and to her the Constitution was a stylistic commemorative art piece.

Mayor Woodward’s thought processes gave him pause before he did a bad deed. The act that Council was about to undertake seemed wrong to Woodward, as it did to Council Member Oakley.

Thus, Constitutional nods appeared to cause Council to repent of their sins, go back to the drawing board, and correct the errors apparent. Woodward and Oakley presumed it permitted the boarders in the targeted boarding house a safe keeping from eviction.

Woodward admitted, “In this particular case, I do believe that there should be a grandfathering of this particular [unrelated family] that we know of.”

Untold to the Mayor, a new plan had already been drawn up by Council Member Joe Jefferson, the budding attorney in the group. In a calculated slight of hand attributable to the “tyranny of the urgent,” it was proposed the same evening; like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

This proposal afforded a new grandfather condition for the targeted boarding house owners so that they could have an exception to the new boarding house rule if they could prove to the City Manager that they had obtained a final inspection on their home.

To the average citizen, the condition appeared reasonable, and a certain group of concerned citizens celebrated over beers that night.

Only the City itself and the boarding house owners were privy to the truth: In January, 2008, eight months earlier, the City had flat refused to act on their duty to provide a final inspection to the homeowners.

Though pleaded with, in person and by correspondence, the City Manager and a quorum of Council members had already conspired to interfere with fiscal relationships between homeowner and bank; homeowner and sub-contractor’s wages due.

The Catch 22, under the guise of Constitutional goodness and fairness, was that the City, having breached its duty to homeowner’s holding permits (contracts), now made the homeowners liable for the City’s breech in court.

Clever bunch, that.

Homeowners were thereby defrauded of their property rights…elegantly.

My question is: the authors of the Constitution, were they political idealists or did they actually compose a document to compel safety and freedom from tyranny?

When I consider the carnage in those forefathers’ existence, those who had lost fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers to political wars in the name of Catholicism, who had escaped raids, wars, beheadings, survived starvation, endured separation from loved ones, embarked on meager little ships as human cargo from Europe to American soil, then having a third of their survivors perish during their first Winter—all this, for what?

They traded all to ensure the dearest possession of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the opportunity to own and work their own land free of tyranny. They went so far as to provide it for even their enemies. Justice for all.

There is a famous story about a woman asking Benjamin Franklin what kind of government the authors of the Constitution had give the people. Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”

Are these the words of an idealist or a pragmatist?

Are the words of the Constitution something to be exploited by Englewood’s government during Constitution Week by people who have no concept of the weight of the words on their shoulders?

Sometimes people get elected because they are crowd pleasers. They seem harmless until they are given responsibility, because they have not yet learned vested wisdom.

The molestation of the highest law of the land is not the defacing of a figurehead, but the degradation of everything our forefathers sacrificed for.