Posted on 03/20/2012 8:59:56 AM PDT by george76
A Burnsville man on his way to work was arrested and thrown in jail without bond, and then subjected to electronic home monitoring.
But it wasn’t for drugs or a DWI or some other major crime.
Burnsville city leaders say Mitch Faber’s dealings with the law all stem from his failure to properly put up siding on his house.
Yep, siding.
Faber says he had every intention of completing the stucco and decorative rock project on his home but he ran into money troubles when the economy soured. Burnsville leaders say they had no choice to enforce the law.
...
The Fabers point to what they call far more glaring code violations outside other houses in their neighborhood. They’d like to know why they were targeted and others weren’t.
“It’s selective enforcement,” said Jean.
Most importantly, though, the Fabers say Burnsville made a mockery of an otherwise law-abiding man.
Asked Mitch, “What did you accomplish other than wasting the city's money, the county's money, our money, and then all the mental and emotional anguish? What did you accomplish?”
(Excerpt) Read more at kstp.com ...
I hope OWS discovers your neighborhood.
Pure socialism. The man's neighbors apparently are reluctant to incur the cost of moving to a nicer neighborhood, so they want to transfer the extra cost to this guy. If you don't want to live next to him—don't!
The fact that he wouldn't show up for his court date is irrelevant. It was a court date over this absurd case.
kautz is a republican.
The man did not do what he promised to do when he pleaded guilty & did not show up for his court date.
Maybe one day you'll have a neighbor from hell like this and you'll change your thinking when you and your neighbor's home value plummets even more.
Well worth reading.
"A bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes...
So I’m a petty tyrant for wanting someone to reconcile something that has a direct impact on my own property’s value (this would make it harder to sell my home if I were so inclined and was impacted by it). Bottom line, I would have to live under the same rules and regs. Why is it tyrannical to insist that anyone else similarly situated be treated any differently under the same law?
Read the main article and the one I linked in a previous post...
Also note, I said nothing about the color, kind, or type of home, nor the windows, number of cars, etc...
He entered into the situation willingly and didn’t plan well. Why should that be everyone else’s problem, when it was one of his own doing?
There are a good number of people on this thread that need to get their facts straight before going off all half cocked! The guy was arrested for not fulfilling his court ordered requirements that stemmed from a code violation, not simply because he didn’t “put siding on his house”. The article’s title is a misnomer.
The responses I’ve read thus far are by and large entirely feelings driven, not intellectually sound or well thought out. That seems odd for people that tout personal responsibility and a core belief...
The arrest warrant wasn’t issued for the code violation, get your facts straight! The warrant was issued because the homeowner did not follow the order the court handed down. If he would have went to court and explained that he finished the work but could not get a response from the city inspector, then the judge would probably have allowed an extension or ordered the city to live up to their end of the bargain.
No, as is clear from the video and from the home owner's statement in post #37, the stucco was finished weeks before the due date. He was clearly jailed as a punitive action for having taken too long to complete the project regardless of any due date. They used the excuse of a small ribbon of unfinished trim work to imprison him.
The man did not do what he promised to do when he pleaded guilty & did not show up for his court date.
No, the distinction is purely semantic. As post #34 explains, they were sending him to jail whether or not he showed up. Had other people not disapproved of the aesthetics of his private property, he would not have gone to jail.
Maybe one day you'll have a neighbor from hell like this and you'll change your thinking when you and your neighbor's home value plummets even more.
No, I don't think a neighbor with an ugly house would turn me into a raving liberal who would support imprisoning my neighbors because of unfinished siding. This was a municipal code violation, not a criminal proceeding. You should be ashamed of yourself for defending this. It is his property, not his neighbors. This wasn't even related to a Home Owner's Association he voluntarily entered into. This level of governmental brutality should shock and horrify anyone with even a modicum of conservatism in them. This was nothing more than an exercise of abusive and overreaching state power. Shame.
The only power any government has is the power of the gun!
“I still contend that there was a better (and more productive) way to gain compliance than tossing the guy in jail.”
Every law, code or regulation can only be enforced via government guns. Every one of them must be viewed through the prism of, “is this law so necessary that we are willing to shoot anyone that is not adhering to it?”
If we think that is extreme, just imagine if this person had resisted arrest.
That would be all well and good were it to impact only the one property owner not maintaining their home in a given city. This being a pretty affluent and decent sized suburb of Minneapolis, one would tend to think they take these kinds of things pretty seriously.
Within the city limits there are always going to be other houses well within eye shot; the relative state of repair or disrepair they are in will either enhance or take away from or the general area as a whole. One person dragging down a city block’s worth of home values because they decide to drag their feet and disregard court orders does not garner my sympathies one whit!
Others have suggested that the affected neighbors move. That’s a ridiculous notion! The affected neighbors did not sign on to being forced to let their property value be depressed by one citizen’s thoughtless disregard. It is not a trivial thing to sell a home nowadays and move. Uprooting your entire family because one person is not responsible or wants to live outside the laws they agreed to live with when they moved into any given area (be it a township, a city, a county, state or whatever) is an outrageous proposition for anyone on this forum to take.
Lest I repeat myself, there are several odd positions being taken here on this forum; a place where people claim to have high regard for a supposed core value of personal responsibility.
Flout a court order and there are consequences...
The Founding Fathers would be readying their muskets over a travesty of this nature.
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