Saturday, March 29, 2008

Your Honorless, I Object!

In this Year of Nexus obsession, every morning (and usually several times during the night) without exception, I wake up thinking about the Public Enemies. It makes me squeamish that I may have actually been nightmaring about Larry or Jerome or Bill or ... geez there's a lot of them... Sometimes I recall the horror movies playing in the theater of my slumber. Most times I just wake up to realize "Shit! It wasn't a dream! THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!! EEEEEEEEEEK!" It is so surreal to think that a year ago I was faced with dilemmas like: Should this be a B Flat or a B Natural??? while publishing music on my non-Nexused hard drive. I don't even LISTEN to music anymore, let alone compose it or or play it. My, how life can change by one decision. Because of a retired barber, a grocer, a couple of laboratory rats, a creepy guy in Arizona, and a couple of religious fanatics, I no longer live the Dream.... I live the Nightmare. God bless America....

So this morning was Onamia city attorney Bob Ruppe's turn. Its kind of like the weather. Today's forecast: rain. Tomorrow's forecast: cloudy. Today's fury: Bob Ruppe. Tomorrow's fury: Partly Steve with scattered Janet. (sigh)

A few weeks ago I told Bob Ruppe that "its not personal, Bob". Again, I need to confess my imperfections. I said this in reference to my posts and videos which show the guy looking rather silly and incompetent, which IN MY OPINION, he is. But I said it thinking of when the mayor told me the same thing... We're screwing you over and wrecking your life, but "its not personal." Perhaps he hasn't watched the videos, because Bob was chipper at the time, not realizing that to me, EVERYTHING is HIGHLY personal! So, I was wrong to say it wasn't. I have to cool it with the sarcasm. My fault.
I have a lot of justification to despise the city attorney. From my perspective, there are many, many reasons he should have advised his clients against the Nexus deal on the Bye/Grosslein property. Minnesota Statute 462.357, the Nuisance Law, Spot Zoning, and of course - the Onamia city ordinances being just a few. Instead of advising the city council on how to best COMPLY and FOLLOW the LAW, this attorney has been actively rewriting city ordinances to CIRCUMVENT the law, causing damage to individual citizens.

If you don't think that a 17% drop in your property value isn't damage, think about how you'd feel going out to sunbathe on your deck with 94 sex offenders watching you from their three-story windows next door. How about the family barbecue where just a few feet away, 94 soccer-playing sex offenders are watching.... committing your 8 year old niece's contour to memory, perhaps for a private moment that night... Think about those sleepless nights, tossing and turning beneath the MLA security lights shining in your windows. And think about your beloved Fido getting shot by the cops because he wandered over the line and bit one of the sex offenders who teased him. No fences allowed, remember?

Bob Ruppe has been working hard to make all of these things a reality in my neighborhood. What's it to him? Its just a $120 per hour JOB. Its not like he has to live here with sex offenders. Its not like HE has to be our neighbor and live with our pain. I question his methods and ethics. For instance, he has been writing new rules without having read the old ones. This became apparent when he failed to give citizens proper notification as prescribed by our local ordinances. And how he can write law to allow juvenile sex offenders into a residential neighborhood when MN Statute forbids it, well, it just blows my mind! At $120 per hour, has the city council been spending your tax dollars unwisely? Thousands of dollars wasted on this lawyer's bad advice? Ya'd think.

The most recent outrage in a long list of outrages is that attorney Bob Ruppe has now taken control of the city government. Not only has he attended most of the city council meetings these past months, (sitting in absentee councilman Jerome Kryzer's seat), he has taken over as if he were the mayor, running the show, refusing to answer citizens' questions at public hearings, directing council members not to answer our questions, and even violating the Open Meeting Law on video tape (!) as if he had regular attorney/client privilege. Nuh-uh. BOB! Government isn't PRIVATE. It is OPEN. TRANSPARENT. (At least it is supposed to be.) of the people, by the people, for the people..... REMEMBER? This ain't Court TV.

Bob Ruppe, IN MY OPINION, is guilty of orchestrating the secretization of our local government. Yes, Virginia, there IS a Secret Government taking place in Onamia, Minnesota. According to Kathleen McCullum, the city clerk, Attorney Ruppe has instructed her to DENY ACCESS to public information. I have personally experienced such denial on several occasions. Recently, when I called the city clerk, (I call her "Damien's Nanny" you know the one with the Rottweiler who would do anything to protect the Anti-Christ), I was told that Bob Ruppe had advised that any questions I had be directed to him.

I called to ask about a public hearing.

City clerk Kathleen McCullum flatly refused to answer. This citizen was directed to make a long distance phone call to a lawyer in St. Michael, Minnesota to find out about a public hearing gravely affecting her life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. (He was out of the office until Wednesday.... but I couldn't reach him all week...)

Geez. I didn't have an opportunity to take part in the Onamia elections. Maybe we should just do away with elections altogether. Each city can hire it's own lawyer to write the town laws and keep information from the public under the attorney/client privilege excuse. What do we need a city council for anyway? I say we don't. They're nothing but trouble. Its not like they represent us or anything. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll give up their room with a view. They need us. They need their public positions to assist them with their private business deals and to help their cronies with their private business deals. Well, if that be the case, maybe they at least could get a better lawyer. I wonder if Bruce Cutler is available...

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