Eye On Englewood

Link: http://www.EnglewoodStory.com

With sentencing still scheduled for October 9, 2009, for City Councilman McCaslin to have circulated the petition for Judge Atencio's inclusion on the November ballot to the Bartnick's neighbors on Pearl, who were witnesses in the case, seems like a clumsy attempt for payback, and perhaps unethical. If the Englewood judge is elected again, his salary is set over $121,000.00 annually.

On Thursday, August 13, 2009, witnesses for Englewood prosecution foiled the City’s plan to validate the prosecution of boarding house owners. Tricia Langon, Senior Planner, testified that the boarding house amendment “was not returned to Planning and Zoning Commission for their approval, because only major modifications or amendments to the code are returned to the Commission for review.”

Langon also testified that despite the Council’s October 6, 2008 enactment of Ordinance 55, (Boarding Houses) such residences are not businesses, but regular residences. They are not home occupations, and they do not require a license.

The jury was then released early, with the judge and prosecution both recommending the legs of the boarding house ordinance be dismissed in favor of the Bartnicks, and remanded to City Council for review.

Defense immediately went to the throat of the validity of the Ordinance because the Englewood City Charter, Section 58, declares that ALL modifications or amendments to ordinances must revert to Planning and Zoning for study and recommendation, even if the City Council chooses to disregard the recommendation. This is to prevent hasty enactments which often fail the test of justice.

The role of the volunteer citizens’ Planning and Zoning Commission to obtain legal council on proposed zoning codes as to fair housing, equal access and other zoning issues, while civil engineering counsel can ascertain measurable densities and standards. Hasty decisions also circumvent justice simply because they feel like a hard pressure sales job. Only time can allow that kind of intimidation to subside in favor of common sense.

The City circumvented its own Charter many times in the making of new Boarding House provisions, but this was the instance for Defense Council’s request for a directed verdict Thursday afternoon.

Judge Atencio taken aback, hemmed and hawed, and then declined his power and duty to declare summary judgment finding accurately that “what Defense is asking cuts to the heart of the ordinance”. Judge then determined “to allow the jury to decide the facts.”

The electric moment of truth was over. What was left of the material facts is unclear, as Tricia Langon had also admitted to the Bartnicks having pulled proper permits for zoning, but that under the new ordinance, parking areas require paint striping. Striping is an interesting dilemma if, unlike the Bartnicks whose back parking area is paved, the homeowner’s parking is unpaved. Keeping paint on dirt parking might prove to be an expensive year around feat for Englewood residences.

August 14, 2009, the jury, unaware of the previous days’ electricity, was sent to deliberate. They found the Bartnicks guilty of a shell of an Ordinance.

The implications of the Englewood verdict relate not only to setting City precedence for ungrandfathering pre-existing properties into newer codes, but also as to human rights and property ownership, the right to freely associate in the privacy of your own home with whomever you wish. If a neighbor accuses you of being unrelated, so be it.

What City Councilman, Bob McCaslin, was unable to accomplish for his friends, Ron and Robin Noffsinger, through Council legislation,

he turned up in the middle of Pearl Street to celebrate Saturday morning after the verdict was won through judicial McFoolery.

McCaslin's zeal short-sighted his actions linking the Englewood City Council to the very neighbors who had listed their names as witnesses against the so-called business. These neighbors each signed the good-old boy petition for re-election of small town political Judge. This is the same Judge who had refused to recuse himself earlier in the case.

Matthew Crabtree, challenger for the At-Large Council position, stumbled upon the judge's petitions for re-election, thus the confirmation of the City Councilman's conspiracy with the neighbors and the judge, when the clerk gave them to him on September 2, 2009.

The Judge is running unopposed this November. McCaslin is not up for re-election until next year.

Link: http://englewoodstory.com

I will go so far as to say this: Everything in a City is grandfathered unless the City is able to prove some license to regulate it.

O, Where O Where doth such a license cometh from?

In Colorado municipalities, they come from Colorado Revised Statutes Title 31, Municipal Governments, michies Colorado free legal which limits powers and are given further boundaries through none other than the Supreme Law of the Land, our great United States Constitution.

These laws clearly state that someone's power, presumed authority or "will" cannot legally over-power or control what rights the law has handed to me already. The mass lynchings are illegal because they are not founded in deference, self-respect or law.

It doesn't matter how much sweaty fervor is passionately invoked or what kind of bribe or slander occurs, if it ain't founded in law, it ain't no good.

Last week in the Englewood Council meeting when Bob McCaslin accidentally, or perhaps conveniently left out of the pre-written invocation, "Help us not to control..." I had to chuckle. Well, it just escaped. I didn't mean to be irreverent. But "arbitrary control" is exactly what this Council loves to do to this fair city by their own elected whims.

But just because they are elected and it is hard to get them unseated, doesn't mean that they have legal rights to presume license over all aspects of residential home lives.

Last week at Council, John Moore played the roll of Mayor and controlled the discussion on Hard Pavements himself. He kept wanting to know what would be "grandfathered" as if Council can simply ignore the City Ordinances and Savings Clauses and has utter authority over the private homes as well as licensed businesses. Near the end of the discussion Moore says, "So what are we choosing to grandfather then? Only gravel?"

Stand Up, people! Where is the Council's license to tell you where or how you can park on your own property?

Once an idea gets passed legislatively, then the full burden of proof rests on one defendant's shoulders, inconveniently cited and hauled to the Judge, to prove that the legislation is unfounded. Since it is the legal duty of the municipal judge to presume the law is reasonable, this individual must have a very strong mind with plenty of time available to find out where the missing links are and present them to the Judge or jury accordingly. If he doesn't have these resources, the illegal law can be established judicially, and then it is almost impossible to over-rule.

So the old maxim stands that all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.

If you choose not to trust your gut, or defend your right to serve, your right of easement, your immunities, your right to real estate, then you forfeit not only the right, but also the law that governs the right. And if you forfeit the law, you betray your fellow man who depends on that same law.

I was trying to stay one step ahead of myself but now I walk on my hands and don’t look back...

"Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal [118 U.S. 374] hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution. This principle of interpretation has been sanctioned by this court in Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U.S. 259; Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275; Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, and Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703. Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703." See, Yick Wo v. Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Submitted April 14, 1886, Decided May 10, 1886,118 U.S. 356.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
FOR THE DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

How do we know what rights we have fundamentally? Consider the Privileges or Immunities clause of the US Constitution. One author has then suggested normal people go to the laws of the District of Columbia to see what's fair there. Another suggests that whatever is fair in all the states is fair in your state.

"It is accordingly enacted by § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other." (See Above, Yick Wo)

I was really scared that Yick Wo, the laundry proprietor, would only protect those narrow civil rights laws specifically written, but when I went to read that case it was as clear as the blue Colorado skies that everyone in America has the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to be parties, to give evidence and to enjoy the full benefit and duties of all laws and policies and access to government and court, and to remain secure in their persons and property.

Neighbors must work hard to subdue your greed, subdue your bias, and subdue being lazy entitled ingrates. Seriously!

Whatever gets sold out for some selfish or shady benefit today, will come back to bite not only you and your white Englewood neighbors and your white grandchildren, but me and my household too because the rest of us have rights only equal to yours, and then your rights are only equal to mine. You need to stand up like responsible, dutiful adults now. I don't want to take the water slide down with you.

W