Woman Faces 93-Days in Jail For Planting Vegetable Garden

[David Hart]

A gardening friend of mine posted this on his facebook page. You'd think the city would have more important things to worry about....'?'

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/julie-bass-of-oak-park-f...

[TCLynx]

knew it would happen some day.

How twisted that a city planner should decide that a lawn is more appropriate than veggies.

Sigh.

[done]

American Oxford Dictionary defines suitable as, right or appropriate for a particular person, purpose, or situation.

 

I believe a vegetable garden in the front, back, or side yard is "suitable", given that this particular person wants to grow her own food and the particular purpose of dirt in the yard is to grow plants and the particular situation is that food is costly and growing your own food is healthy and satisfying.  Shame on the beurocrats.     

[Two Jay]

There are many other updated / current links for the same story.... It's no wonder people are leaving this state!

[Chris McMahon]

People have been growing food for thousands of years. I know what your going to say... but this guy was born yesterday.

 

1) He needs to read his dictionary BEFORE he goes on TV and makes a fool of himself and the city.

2) No matter how many pinstrip suits you own you still cannot stop people from gardening.

3) When the people who don't produce anything can fine, incarcerate people that do, and the laws protect them from you, your country is headed for calamity.

 

Another note about food stamps. What happens when a state goes flat broke to the fiat currency system? It can't pay for the food stamps anymore. Your going to have millions of people going hungry all at once. something to think about.

 

If they fine her or send her to jail and anyone in that state says anything about going green they should be removed from office.

[Eric Warwick]

But, don't you get it, going green is about talking about, watching movies, and buying more of the more-expensive-things because they are organic, not action or taking responsibility for our planet (that's just crazy) . 

Chris McMahon said:

If they fine her or send her to jail and anyone in that state says anything about going green they should be removed from office.

[Ellen Roelofs]

It'd be nice to see others in Oak Park planting gardens to show support.

[Jon Baldwin]

It would be nice to see, but now all her neighbors know they will be persecuted and prosecuted for doing so.  The System wins again.

[Converse]

  It would be interesting to actually read the court proceedings records, which are public information.  I cannot imagine ANY logical reason for her conviction given what I read in the online news articles.   I wonder if there was an organized push to get her sentence removed and all charges dropped, if it would be possible? (you know, public outcry, letters, phone calls. etc..)  The is a very scarry precident  to set. This is just wrong.

[Richard Wyman]

While jail time is out of order for this "offense" her garden does leave something to be desired for a front yard garden. She made no effort to make it look like the front yard.  A little effort in making it look nicer might have prevented this action. It could lower home prices around her.  It is sad, but it is a fact.  Most people care more about home prices than if the neighbor is hungry.

[TCLynx]

Front yard or back yard, do you really want your neighbors to tell you how to live your life?  The code enforcement officer didn't go searching the neighborhood looking for front yards to site, some neighbor complained to code enforcement that they didn't like what was going on at "such and such" address so then the code enforcement had to go look and instead of simply saying, hum, looks like plant material to me, they went and sent it up the line to the noddleheaded supervisor who things lawns are more appropriate than raised garden beds which may have happened no matter how hard they tried to make it look nicer.

[Richard Wyman]

Yes, I understand your arguments TCL, I am just saying the neighbors might not have complained if it didn't look like it is half done landscaping, While I don't think that her garden is a crime I do think it could look better.  If you want to garden in the front yard that is cool. But..........when buyers come looking they want a nice looking neighborhood.  With a little extra effort it can look better. Just a few rocks around her raised beds, a few more flowers mixed in around would make a huge difference in appearance. And maybe silence the critics

 

 

[Wayne Hall]

Rightly so TCLynx, because some neighbour didn't like the "LOOK", it would be just as easy to put a nice flowering hedge in front of the raised beds, but then again everyone has their own "taste" on things, personally I think it looks find.

I have watermelon and tomatoes growing in my front yard, but I also have huge sunflowers and giant zinnias as well which people notice first.