If the town council persist in making these attacks against me, and this website, I suppose my next step will be to Motion The New Jersey Superior Court to intervene and temporarily (until the in process lawsuit is resolved) strip the town council of its authority to pass any legislation regarding access to public records. Alternatively, If the town council does pass its $25 fee for audiotape copies I will look into the possibility of paying a local resident $25 to record (audio and maybe video) council meetings. Of course, unlike the "public servants" of Mendham, and as stated in a previous Blog post, I'll provide copies for free (donation requested).
The fact that conflict, easily and almost inevitably escalates is a sad fact of life. For some four years, I've tried to find compromises, and have given the town fair warning that I was not going to except forever, the next to nothing they have obligated me to settle for. The simple truth is, I am done being slapped around, and I'm not going to just take-it anymore. So I guess it's damn the discreditable innuendoes and obstructive fees, and full "federal case" ahead.
These morons, have written up some new ordinances, for the maniacally evil Borough Council to approve, that are so blatantly and preposterously illegal you have to wonder if they even spent five minutes researching the relevant established State and Federal law. The fact that they apparently haven't advised the town council to tread carefully and lightly, in light of the pending civil suit I have filed against the Borough of Mendham-- has me wondering if these "lawyers" have even ever read the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
On the bright side, my palms are itching, and the mayor and borough administrator will likely be relieved of some personal responsibility as the town council has effectively codified a Borough wide conspiracy to violate my personal civil-rights, and the public interest.
This agenda document (which I received midday today) has a lot of crazy stuf in it. Giving it a cursory once over there are two particular items that got my attention.
Considering that I can get three girls-gone-wild videos for $10. I don't see these audiotapes going platinum any time soon. Reading other provisions of the law apparently this price doesn't include the actual tape the copy is copied onto. I wonder how much they are going to resell cassette tapes for. I can state for a "bet on it" fact that this fee schedule has no hope of being sustained by a rational New Jersey court.
The GRC and the Superior Court have well-established a "conversion" must require an extensive amount of resources to be chargeable, and that the charge (if there is to be one) must be commensurate with actual cost. I've read case law where entire hard drive data bases had to be copied for free.
Reading these pieces of garbage legislation, I think the attack on me and this website is quite obvious. To say the very least it's pretty disappointing if any of you elected councilmembers with the hope that they would perform this kind of petty, unAmerican, downright evil "duty".
Town Council Meeting tonight (12/1/03) 8:00
Related link:: The "still working on it" chronology of a town government desperate to function in secret.
Quoting the minutes of the November 17th town council meeting:
I would hope most of you are sufficiently "Internet literate" to realize how truly insane this is. Beyond the technical impracticality... the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution would obligate the town to charge for phone calls also--and I suppose for written "snail mail" as well. How will they "schedule" this fee? Based on the number of words they have to read or hear, or would it be based on the number of words in their reply. I hope they would be able to estimate how many words they will have to write, so you can know in advance how much the answer to a question might cost you. The fact that an attorney, licensed to practice law, some where other than Florida, would accept this "direction" without asking, if the date of "future introduction" is intended to be April fool's Day, has got to concern someone besides me.
Quoting:
Mayor Kraft stated that the site is not claiming to be the official site of the Borough, but that the Garden Club and Business Association, who advertise on the site, have been advised that it is not the official site."
"a discredit to the community" I suppose I earned this badge of discredtibility for believing in the concept of truly "public" government and for providing a platform for un-popular, sometimes ugly, free speech. I can't say this insult isn't hurtful and disappointing... But I do know I have done no dishonor to the truth, nor have I stolen anything from anyone. In other words, I have no regrets, and no apologies to make.
As for "separating" this website from the Borough-- I suppose that's possible if the Borough doesn't mind separating itself from the American continent and from the American Constitution.
Regarding the Mayor's characterization of the Garden Club and Business Association as "advertisers". Unlike a fireman's prank, this looks like a "maliciously" tossed smoke bomb to me. Being that I created and than maintained the "official town" site for two years, the mayor knows perfectly well that the Business Association and the Garden Club are not advertisers on InMendham.com. The web space has been provided to these organizations for free, I have asked for nothing in return for my willingness to publish any information they would like to provide to the interested public. Both web-sites have been designed to function independently of inMendham.com. The only "connection" being the logical navigational aid of menu links.
There is a pretty disgusting irony in the Mayor's overt effort to extort these organizations to disassociate themselves from the free good will I have offered them. Back in the days when I was making a conscientious effort to get the Mendhamnj Dot org domain fairly listed by the search engines. I came upon the realization that the "search industry" is nothing but a marketing scam. In attempting to defend the notion of logical, efficient Internet navigation I became the enemy of the evil marketing parasites that now have complete control of Internet Navigation . In an effort to harm me, these petty small minded villains, attempted the subterfuge of guilt by slanderous association. The mayor was a perfect dupe for their plan, to attack my "clean, honest, open Internet" opinions, by attacking my personal life and anyone or thing connected to it. First they hacked my website with pornography, bad language, and the direct threat "to make my life hell" then they e-mailed some local businesses and the mayor hoping to seed them with the idea that I must have done something wrong to have earned the controversy that "they" were creating around me. The mayor, understanding nothing of Internet technology, assumed that because these individuals could ( through deliberate investigation) associate my personal opinion site (through me) to Mendham Borough and its official site -- that somehow, I was leaving Mendham's official website open to inappropriate Association with my search engine opinion site. Explaining the absolute fact that there was no real link that would allow any Mendham resident to accidently find my opinion site when looking for the town site-- fell on deaf ears... and adamantly defending the idea that a volunteer webMaster, who is paying for the web space the town is using, should not be obligated to sacrifice his right of free expression, for the "privilege" of having to nag, and nag, and nag... disinterested government officials, to get some information so he can waste time formatting it ...thanklesslee-- I suppose marked the beginning of the end of my days as a suitable town volunteer.
This is more than I intended to say on the subject, we are in litigation don't you know.
Here are a couple of a new pages I haven't really figured out where to put yet.
Information regarding what the Borough has spent on legal fees.
Basic phone-book-style Borough Government information.
Summary of the October 20th meeting
The recreation director has apparently decided to pursue better opportunities and has resigned-- The primarily part-time, summer-time, post pays about $10,000. Discussion about placing an ad was sidelined by the suggestion that past candidates for the position be contacted and the comment that there is a teacher at hilltop school who may be interested in the position.
Summary of the November 3rd Council meeting
There was a lot of discussion regarding the Board of Education's proposal that a traffic light be installed at the high-school entrance. The council was of generally negative, but of mixed opinions...and decided in the end to request that the high school offer some real proposal to reduce drop-off traffic at the high school in exchange for "not opposing" the installation of a traffic light. It is stated that the traffic light will cost some $200,000 [ this seems a preposterous amount of money to spend for $100 in electronics and maybe a couple of thousand dollars' worth of mechanical parts [4 poles and one suspended center light,] For Christ's sakes, a common cellphone is probably more than 10 times more complex than the most sophisticated traffic light. For $200,000 we could probably buy a hundred foot crane and LIFT cars into the school parking lot]
There are lots of angles to this issue.. so I've set up this message board for those who have any creative solutions to offer regarding how to reduce traffic overall, but most specifically, how to reduce drop-off traffic at the high-school.
A couple of notes on the process so far:
- I was surprised to learn that a defendant (the Borough in this case) is required to pay a fee of $135 for the basic "privilege" of saying "not guilty". Fees ($200.00) for filing lawsuits are in my opinion constitutionally questionable to start with, and it seems to me outrageous that a "presumed innocent" defendant should be required to pay a fee before they have been proven guilty of anything. On a personal note, being that I know the town is guilty of in practical fact stealing more than $135.00 worth of web hosting services from me, I am honestly not unhappy to oblige the town to incur this cost.
- In the bizarre category: In preparing a summons to be served on a defendant the plaintiff (me in this case) is required by the rules of the court to essentially "forge" the clerk of the Superior Courts signature. It seems to me there is no circumstance that could justify the court essentially endorsing a practice of forgery.
- In the you've got to be kidding category: The Court informs the plaintiff of the, all important, docket and track #'s by sending a barely legible, tissue thin, Dot Matrix printed "track assignment notice". Almost 35 years since we landed on the Moon, and a bureaucracy as important as a State Superior Court can apparently get away with producing official documents of this poor quality
Updated pages:
Added the November Edition of the Mendham Messenger to the Announcements page
October 6th meeting of the Mendham Borough Town Council:
Council again discussed traffic problems regarding the high school. The council seems committed to forcing the board of education to pay $60,000 annually for police presence on Drake Rd. I think sensibly, the Board of Education would rather make a onetime $20,000 expenditure for speed bumps. Reasonable suggestions of limiting police presence to the peak minutes in the morning and afternoon and the possibility of electronic or remote surveillance were not given much consideration.
There was some discussion regarding a draft ordinance requiring background checks for Borough Employees who have household access. [seems to me this is a proposed solution without a problem]
There was some discussion of the "racket" of "online tax payment". Having this service provided by an outside company really destroys all economic efficiency [in my opinion, it would cost the town very little to provide this service "inhouse" and as a free public service.]
The Mayor asked the question: "what's in it for us?" regarding AT&T's request to install antennas for wireless services on telephone poles.
There was some discussion of some letters sent to the Audi dealership (regarding parking violations)-- apparently Audi has not yet replied.
One of the council members congratulated the borough administrator on the town's official Web site stating: "it is starting to shape up nicely" [urrrrr]
There was some discussion regarding the new contract with the police department-- Apparently there has been some problems in the past over how overtime hours are figured.
It was mentioned that there will be openings on the Board of Adjustment and the Planning Board
The Mayor made mention of a problem with the sidewalk in front of his House. A local pedestrian was apparently injured when they tripped over a heave in the sidewalk created by a tree root. It was stated that the towns standard practice would be to replace the existing section of sidewalk with compacted stone until the sidewalk could be scheduled for more complete repair.
Their was some discussion of the retaining wall on the corner of Main Street and Mountain Avenue. The owners of the property apparently are unwilling to continue to maintain the wall if the town does not provide some mechanism--like a guard rail--to prevent traffic damage.
Won't you be my Neighbor [Mr. Rogers's neighborhood it's not]:
One of the "cottages" here on Ironia Rd. is up for rent so I thought I would use the occasion to do a little development work on this sites for-sale/classified section. The landlords Observer Tribune ad describes it as a "honeymoon cottage" but I think it's probably more suited to someone for whom the honeymoon is over.
I wasn't going to do anymore Borough pond "fish stories"... but yesterday's improbable event does merit a mention. I was again fishing below the dam for fish to relocate back to the pond--catching mostly bluegills and small bass--when I noticed something "eel like" swimming in the bucket. I soon realize it was a baby snake [about 4 in. long]. It was all black with a yellow band right behind its head and a bright orange underside. I'd never seen this species of snake before and have come to learn that it was a Northern Ringneck. Apparently, shortly before being caught by me one of the fish had made a meal of this little snake, and coughed it up while in the bucket. The little snake--"Jonah"-- was a bit banged up but still pretty energetic. I thought it best to keep it for a few days to give it some time to recover. Sadly, it literally went belly-up last night so, I guess, there will be no grandsnakeletts to impress with the story of the day he survived being eaten by a fish.
I have updated the "Mendham" version of my "powercons" toolbox. If you use Internet Explorer you should give it a try. The program is a very light download [90k], and provides many useful browsing tools, plus easy access to most Mendham related Internet links. The newest tool added is an Observer Tribune select-text-and-search link. [look for the "Search observer-trib" link off the MORE menu.]
The official town site, mendhamnj.org, is going through another redesign. The new design appears to be based on a better template that should include a search feature. As content becomes available I will post some links.
[lawsuit update]: A recent exchange with the town administrator has me pretty discouraged regarding the possibility of avoiding having to sue the Borough of Mendham. In deference to a council member opinion that things can be worked out, I am going to give it a little more time (besides I have a lot of old tapes to go through).
This most recent dispute over access to tape recordings of council meetings has none of the subtle "crimes" of past obstructions to information access. The borough administrator is, in a word, "crazy" to think he will get away with this nonsense.
It begins with an argument with the Clerk over the issue of "approval". The clerk sends a letter requiring me to use a OPRA "form"
I fill out the incredibly stupid form, and write a letter protesting the "demand" that I be obligated to endure this hoop jumping.
When I receive the form back from the Clerk, she has added the statement that: "copies of audio tapes will be provided two (2) weeks after the date of the meeting". I leave a hostile voicemail for Ralph Blakeslee informing him that this two week delay is unacceptable.
Ralph replies with this letter defending the two week delay.
I reply, by offering to solve all the "technical" obstacles.
The borough administrator basically asks me to "please" sue him, rather than offer solutions. [curious how this letter wasn't cc-ed to the town council]
