I do not generally read or watch the local news, or even the national news. So when I heard a story out of Oak Park (MI) on Balko’s site via facebook this morning, I had to check it out.
Sure as shit, there’s a petty bureaucrat in a city not 3 miles from me, who’s intent on enforcing his standards of aesthetics even if it means pursuing criminal charges (up to 93 days in prison) against a woman who had the audacity to plant tomatoes in her front lawn.
Julie Bass' front-lawn garden
Aside from the City Planner’s questionable interpretation of the word suitable (round which this entire brouhaha revolves, apparently) I think it’s pretty obvious that anyone willing to press criminal charges against someone for growing a couple of plants is clearly mad. It’s not like she is breeding dogs or livestock or something that could conceivably pose a threat to her neighbors.
The city official’s name is Kevin Rulkowski, and his email address is krulkowski@ci.oak-park.mi.us. Feel free to send him an email and let him know how retarded it is. I did.
copy of the letter sent to Oak Park city planner Rulkowski
Here is a transcription, in case the print is too small.
I just read about Julie Bass and the vegetable garden she’s planted in her front yard (here).
I would think that the City of Oak Park has dozens of better ways of spending its very limited resources (financial and otherwise) than to harass a woman who is doing something useful and productive, and whose actions are not hurting anyone. The fact that you are seriously willing to push a criminal penalty of up to 93 days in prison ought to be taken as prima facie evidence that you are unfit to wield whatever small amount of power is bestowed upon a city planner.
It is people like you who make this world worse, every day.
What can I say? I calls ’em like I see ’em, and this one is as retarded as a football bat.
