Power Corrupts: Gould, Arkansas, City Council Wants to Run Local Government as a Dictatorship, Very Much Like Your Typical Homeowners' Association

Arkansas Town Seeks to Ban Free Speech for Residents

July 17, 2011

Examiner.com - Gould, Arkansas, is a small town of about 850 people. If the city council has its way, those 850 people will be barred from gathering together to discuss city matters without approval from the city government.

Mayor Earnest Nash is completely opposed to the plan and is willing to go to court rather than see the ordinance pass.

"This is still America," Mayor Nash told Fox 16.

"You just can't vote and violate people's constitutional rights," he said.

Last Monday, the council voted to ban groups from gathering or forming without city approval.

Sonja Farley, a member of the Gould City Council, said that no matter the group, if anyone meets to discuss the city, that meeting must be approved by the city.

"You can't just come in here, get with four people and decide to start an organization," Farley said, adding, "You will go through your city council with legal documentation and get approval."

But Mayor Nash promised he would not sign the ordinance, calling it ludricous that he would not be allowed to meet with citizens to discuss city business.

"They can take me to court," Mayor Nash said pointedly.

Fox 16's Katherine Johnson said the ordinance was "extremely vague," and encompasses "Boy Scout troups, book clubs," and even bans families from discussing city matters at the dinner table.

Johnson said the Mayor vetoed the ordinance on a technicality, but it could be brought up at a council meeting in August and possibly made law without the Mayor's approval. Johnson also said that if the ordinance was passed, her interview with Mayor Nash and the city council would be illegal.

John DiPippa, Dean of the Law School at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, expressed disbelief when he first read the proposed law.

"The truth is the city of Gould doesn't have the authority to tell anyone that they have no right to petition them, no right to speak and no right to exist in their city," DiPippa told Fox16.

"The fact is, if it's aimed at this group, it also extends to you talking to your mother or a church group or any other group that wants to form. A garden club! It's so broad that it can't possible comply with the First Amendment," he said.

Fox reports that even the city attorney tried to tell the council the proposal was illegal and violated the First Amendment. In return for his advice, Fox reported that "members tried to fire him."

DiPippa told Fox the ordinance will end up with a lawsuit:

"Unfortunately, it's probably going to lead to a lawsuit, embarrassment and an expense for the city of Gould because this has no chance of being upheld in a court," said DiPippa, adding, according to the ordinance, the conversations Fox16 had with the mayor, council members and the Gould City Advisory Commission on Wednesday were against the law.

"Technically, when they met with you, they violated their own ordinance," said DiPippa.

A post at therightscoop.com notes:

This is tyranny on steroids. I can’t imagine this will stand up in court but it appears that the city council wants to test that theory. Just unbelievable that they would even do this. They must be really crooked if they want to silence people in this manner.

American Dictatorships: The Tyranny of Homeowner's Associations

Homeowners Associations are often run by the worst sorts of petty tyrants, unscrupulous opportunists, and micro-managerial nitpickers. And however great their abuses of power have become, they so far still have the weight of state law backing them because they provide lawyers with a way to make a lot of easy money. - When your property isn't yours: quasi-governmental tyranny by Homeowners Associations, Vanguard News Network Forum, July 17, 2004

August 4, 2009

Youth Adrift - As a Political Science major, I have learned quite a lot about all levels of government, from the halls of Congress all the way down to the Town Hall. However, there was one gleaming omission in my education on the governing of America, that being the absolute lowest level of government imaginable...the Homeowner's Association (HOA).

To those unfamiliar with HOA's, they are essentially the ruling bodies of Common Interest Developments (gated communities, apartment and townhouse complexes, etc). After a Developer builds, they transfer the responsibility of governing it to a HOA.

HOA's are not governed by many of the same regulations as regular goverments. For example, an HOA can restrict a homeowner from obtaining services such as television or internet from a particular company or even limit it to only one company. They generally enforce their rules through the use of fines, surcharges, or sanctions.

But who runs the Homeowners Association?

Do you know how every neighborhood has an old lady who sits by her window day and night, keeping tabs on everyone’s comings and goings and spreading malicious gossip? If you live in an HOA neighborhood, chances are she is the President. You see, most leadership positions in an HOA are on a volunteer basis. Indeed, one of the common characteristics of an HOA official is a willingness to spend a vast amount of time micromanaging their neighbor’s affairs for no compensation. Therefore, the desire must be so great, or the alternative ways of spending time so unappealing, that only the most deranged and/or secluded would even consider it.

But of course, like any responsible government, the top officials, the cream of the crop if you will, must be elected. Unfortunately, here in lies one of the pivotal flaws in the structure of the HOA. Voting privileges are typically limited to other members of the board, as in, other volunteers, as in other deranged and secluded old ladies and gentlemen. Thus, HOA elections become nothing more than popularity contests for busybodies. The result is a contingent of the meddling led by the most meddlesome.

Most HOA’s are also divided into committees in order to empower as many old people as possible. There’s the Clubhouse Committee, in which officials tackle hot button issues like what types of footwear are allowable within the clubhouse, what channel the television will be tuned to (QVC), and what brand of toilet paper to stock in the bathroom. One of the more prestigious committees is surely the Pool Committee. These board members wield perhaps the most powerful enforcement tool, the permanent pool ban. Typically, one or two old ladies will serve as the Pool Committee Gestapo. They spend the day disguised as mild mannered sunbathers, but once a rule is broken, they instantly spring into action, armed with their permanent ban like a loaded bazooka. When these women go home at night, they sleep peacefully knowing they have made the world safe from excessive splashing and unsupervised teenage swimmers.

Indeed, HOA’s do serve a noble purpose. They give the elderly a sense of purpose that they would otherwise lack. This lack of a purpose would most likely lead to them breeding countless cats who would eventually end up as wards of this nation's already over-burdened animal shelters. Additionally, they save the nation billions of dollars in healthcare costs by giving the elderly an outlet for entertainment aside from visiting the doctor for mystery ailments.

Of course, these benefits come at a great cost to the peace and liberty of common interest community residents who bare the burden of enduring ridiculous proclamations on lawn ornaments and mailbox colors. A solution to this problem must be found quickly before HOA’s accrue the power to raise armies.

As it stands now, our most viable form of protection from the spread of HOA jurisdiction is our ability to control the supply of denture paste and Ensure. Without these necessities, the HOA will be unable to communicate and feed. However, should these assets fall into the hands of a HOA, our nation will very likely find itself on the verge of the greatest battle for individual liberty since the Revolutionary War.