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Government is out of Control! Cities, Counties, States and the Federal Government are overspending and over-controlling. In the past, Cities have left the individual alone. The IRS, FTB, ATF, FBI, CIA and other higher govenment entities have been the ones to usurp power. Now, Cities are getting out of hand, too. Palo Alto v. Leibrand: Gardening Grandma Arrested for Failure to Prune In Palo Alto, Calif., a 61-year old grandmother was arrested and almost went to jail, because "her hedge of xylosma bushes was more than 2 feet tall". This was covered in the Monday, December 8, 2003 edition of the Daily Press, which commented "While she won her fight with cancer, she couldn't prevail over city hall. But frankly, she shouldn't have had to try.". Check out the grandma's story at dailysignal.com/2010/05/14/criminalizing-unsatisfactory-hedge-pruning/ (Criminalizing Unsatisfactory Hedge Pruning) Stockton arrests Lady for sharing Ceviche with PotLuck Facebook Group. 1, 2, 3, 4 Landlord helps near-homeless with low rents - City goes after him because repairs after vandalism aren't fast enough. 1, 2 2 Peter 2: 2-3) warns us "and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you" |
$64-billion bullet train project
Los Angeles Times story on $64-billion bullet train project Among the myriad complaints about the mammoth $64-billion bullet train project — taxpayers angry over the cost, farmers fuming over land grabs and other complaints — the furor from horse owners has come at bureaucrats out of left field. Horse owners have unleashed their wrath on bullet train officials in public meetings over the last year in a clash reminiscent of the 19th century collision between the Transcontinental railroad and the horse culture of the Great Plains. The horse owners want the above-ground section of tracks through their communities routed elsewhere, put in tunnels or eliminated altogether. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Fritz Bronner, a veteran Rose Parade horseman who lives in Lake View Terrace with his four horses, said he was outraged over the state's handling of the issue. "These are not lawn ornaments," he said. "We get on these animals and do something with them. My horses can still get spooked and bolt." The northern San Fernando Valley horse towns — among the nation's largest and most vibrant urban equestrian communities — worry their character will be destroyed. Ranch owners estimate as many as 10,000 horses are kept in Sunland, Tujunga, Shadow Hills, Lake View Terrace, Kagel Canyon, Agua Dulce and Acton — all of which could be affected to varying degrees by possible bullet train routes. Rail officials have not denied those concerns, but they have offered no blanket concessions and carefully avoided confronting critics, instead responding with government jargon.Cities in California
In California, Cities have often gotten totally out of hand, so the Legislature had to start restricting them more.
In 1967, the ability of Municipal Corporations to issue Citations or Notice to Appear was repealed (former Penal Code 853.1 to 853.4). In 1970, the California Legislature repealed provisions for municipalities to enact ordinances or regulations imposing restrictions equal to or greater than those imposed by the state. California Health and Safety Code 17958.5, requires that the Building Code can only be amended for geographical, topographical, or climatic reasons, not by whim..(see Briseno v. City of Santa Ana 6 Cal.App.4th 1378, 8 Cal.Rptr.2d 486 (4th Dist 1992), Building Insustry Assn. V. City of Livermore, 45 Cal.App.4th 719, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 902 (1st Dist 1996), Baum Electric Co. v. City of Huntington Beach 33 Cal.App.3d 572, 109 Cal.Rptr. 260 (4th Dist 1973), Gonzales v. Santa Ana 12 Cal.App.4th 1335, Cal. Apt. Assn v. City of Fremont 97 Cal.App.4th 693. Many Cities are using False Pretexts for Domination, usually labeled an unreasonable application of the Municipal Code or Building Code, because it is not for any needed purpose or exigent circumstance. “A legislative body may not, under the guise of the police power, impose restrictions that are unnecessary and unreasonable upon the use of private property or the pursuit of useful activities. (McKay Jewelers vs. Bowron).” In Chantiles vs. Lake Forest II Master Homeowner’s Assn, 37 Cal.App.4th 914,922, (1955), the Court terms the [government’s] actions as “a clear cut case of a ‘nanny state’ - nanny in almost a literal sense - going too far. These actions flew in the face of one of the most ancient precepts of American society and Anglo-American legal culture. “A man’s house is his castle” was not penned by anonymous, but by the famous jurist Sir Edward Coke in 1628.” “It is of far greater concern to effectuate an incremental whittling away of private property rights absent demonstrable public harm.” Hurwitz v. City of Orange, (September 24, 2004) (cite as: 2004 WL 2129731 (Cal. App. 4 Dist.) "... a city’s finding of “nuisance” could be found by a trial court to be pretextual (as a cover for the substantive taking of property, or as here, a property right), this is it. “in substance, the sequence shows that the city was not using its police power to abate a nuisance. Rather, it was trying to use its police power to abate nuisances as a fig leaf to hide the rather naked expropriation of an existing property right.” “We need only add that there is precedent for the point that a public entity cannot mask what is substantively a taking merely by invoking its nuisance power.”
Most Cities have no charter granting them exclusive jurisdiction for “Municipal Affairs”, and thus, each as a Municipal Corporation with the limited powers of a General Law City, is subject to County and State Codes and Statutes, with which it is in conflict. (An ordinance which prohibits the same acts which are forbidden by state law is void to extent that it duplicates state law. People v. Commons (Super. 1944) 64 Cal.App.2d Supp. 925, 148 P.2d 724; see Municipal Corporations 592(2). The police powers of a city under Government Code 38660 include the power to regulate construction, but not maintenance and use, unless they are unsafe for renters and the public: it is not designed to protect the owner from himself.
Health and Safety Code section 17912. “Rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to the provisions of this part and building standards published in the State Building Standards Code, relating to the erection or construction of buildings or structures, shall not apply to existing buildings or structures or to buildings or structures as to which construction is commenced or approved prior to the effective date of the rules, regulations, or building standards, except by act of the Legislature, but rules, regulations, and building standards relating to use, maintenance, and change of occupancy shall apply to all hotels, motels, lodginghouses, apartment houses, and dwellings, or portions thereof, and buildings and structures accessory thereto, approved for construction or constructed before or after the effective date of such rules, regulations, or building standards.”Building Code 3401 essentially grandfathers in existing structures that are safe.
Many Cities still go beyond their authority in the application of Building Codes. The City's Building Official, Code Enforcement Dept., and Dept. of Community Development all work under the auspices of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, whose vesting authority is delimited in 2001 California Building Code section 101.17.Join us in returning Government to the People. Help us teach Renegade Bureaucrats their Constitutional Limits.
Contact Jim Krage at jimk@cyberdude.com if you want to help.