Englewood Story

Link: http://EyeOnEnglewood.com

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Some people have asked the obvious question, "Can't you just hire an attorney?... If you are too poor, won't they provide you one?" So, here is our story.

In the new playing field, I stumbled around with legal arguments to the City's two new Complaints against both Bill and myself.

Although I had been a good little paralegal in a couple of law firms, I did not understand form, rules of evidence, rules of motion writing or how to reign in my own anger at the powerful treachery goings on under the official cloak of authority.

I regularly called on attorneys to see if they would handle our case. This attorney and that flatly stated that we could not pay their fees, that they only worked for cities or corporations with deep pockets and return business.

I called a local attorney who agreed that I had a case but announced that she worked as a part-time judge for the City and could not risk her employment, nor could she ethically represent me against them. She told me to call the Denver University law school. They would love this kind of challenge she assured me.

I wrote a letter, attaching the Complaint, and walked it across campus and up to the third floor of this regal looking law school building. The receptionist looked at me sympathetically and then said the professor handling this department was on maternity leave and would not be engaging with anyone new for quite some time.

Some attorneys were cryptically rude in letters of rejection. Another one spoke at length to me about having taken two cases like this before but having lost them.

I found precedent in my research that seemed to say that it was the duty of zoning departments to define the families and households in their districts, and that the court would uphold their intent. This precedent frightened me.

We applied for a legal aid attorney to no avail. Though our earnings were not at poverty level, the hourly rate attorneys were typically charging had doubled since my career in law offices. Old charts and definitions for deciding who qualified for legal assistance were outdated. They left a large hole for average homeowners like ourselves to tumble through.

In our case, what my husband made in a day equaled the price of travel time to court for young attorneys who just yesterday were practicing in mock court settings at law school! Perhaps I knew more than they did, but for sure, I was more zealous to defend our cause.

One attorney took thousands of dollars in retainer fees, then decided to settle without our approval because of his personal conflicts on the calendar. When we refused, he insulted us, threatened us by forecasting a total loss complete with a hundred thousand dollars in fines and jail. We panicked for a couple days and argued heatedly. In the end, we decided to stay our course of faith, loose our retainer to this unethical man, and not look back.

I read Psalm 37 in Eugene Peterson’s The Message. “Get insurance with God and do a good deed. Settle down and stick to your last. Keep company with God, get in on the best. Open up before God, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done; He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.

“Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store.

“Bullies brandish their swords, pull back on their bows with a flourish. They’re out to beat up on the harmless, or mug that nice man out walking his dog. A banana peel lands them flat on their faces –-slapstick figures in a moral circus.

Meditating like this infused me with comfort, gentleness and hope. This version makes for a contemporary simile. Sometimes, I laugh and cry at the same time because things off limits for an American girl to say in her prayers, were stated in raw form in the poems of David the Shepherd and David the renegade leader. I could relate to this David.

But, how could I “bridle my anger?” This seemed too difficult for me much of the time. At times, I was filled with anger.

Every time I thought I was passed it, the reality of the prosecution, the weight of the city leaning on me, taking away the one thing I could give back to my husband and to God, slapped me in the face.

When I went out for a walk, our neighbor Anne would jump out of her front door and hold herself back from leaping at me. Her hatred was a force of energy hard to describe. They now had four video surveillance cameras on their property, one captured part of our house and our driveway.

I applied to a Christian Attorney’s network, but they only specialized in the hot topics of discrimination such as pro-life issues and church rights. Again, we were turned down.

A Land Rights League of attorneys brought our case to their board of directors, but in the end, their plates were already full.

The ACLU was fighting another defense case for business owners who had dared to improve the aging facades of their businesses, and against whom the City of Englewood had also filed suit. I saw in my research that they had defended a common law couple in Montana who had faced a similar violation of their city’s definition of household. I contacted them with our problem.

The ACLU rarely defends people who openly claim Christ. I guess they figure, “Let Christ defend his own.” At any rate, they were too busy to defend us.

“Stalwart walks in step with God; his path blazed by God, he’s happy. If he stumbles, he’s not down for long; God has a grip on his hand.” Psalm 37, The Message

We found a firm that wanted to take us on Pro Bono. We held our breath. But, because there were so many people involved as so called "witnesses" against us, there turned out to be a conflict of interest with someone in the firm being related to the Drakes.

They gave us hope about the merits of our case, but in the end were prevented from actually representing us.

Another firm again took us on, took our retainer, prepared to send out twelve subpoenas in our defense only to be informed that the City of Englewood had retained another partner in the firm on a gas station litigation matter, and they refused to allow this firm to put up the usual Chinese Curtain between the issues and partners.

This is a City's prerogative, to waive or not to waive their right, but in the case of the City of Englewood, they have so many irons in the fire, that all the firms who specialize in municipal issues are already retained and being employed in litigation matters. Think about all the tax money being spent on $200 - $350 per hour litigation!

There were seemingly no attorneys available to defend our cause. We were shut out from obtaining a legal defense, or forced to waive our rights to a speedy trial in order to find one.