Friday, July 31, 2009

Judge Del Muro to City: Ur doin it wrong

Just read Judge Del Muro's ruling in favor of the Mayor and his wife in the volunteer ordinance case. Normal folks should feel free to ignore the legal analysis contained therein and focus on the Judge's conclusion. I laughed out loud. I love it when judges write like this:

However, Section 2-56 limits the authority to terminate a volunteer to the one who has designated that person as a volunteer. The city might do well to consider amending this provision to allow the council to terminate persons regardless of who designated them as volunteers, under the at will doctrine, especially where, as in this case, a volunteer disrupts day-to-day business of the city and/or whose conduct has resulted in litigation at the city's expense.


Go, Justine!

can I call you Justine? Please, just this once? In honor of you slicing through a year of nonsense with one calm sentence?

6 comments:

  1. I'm confused. The judge indicates section 2-59 includes a "unique prescription against family members of elected officials [which] constitutes a special law."

    I read that as the reason the ordinance is unconstitutional.

    The advice the Judge gives on section 2-56 concerns who has the authority to terminate the volunteer - which is advice the judge gives that is seemingly unrelated to the violation contained in 2-56.

    ??

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  2. Ahhh. I get it, andthe last paragraph is magical but part of a three-part fix. Now that I have actually read the whole thing, then the city can fix the ordinance by doing three things:

    (1) Eliminate the vagueness inthe definitions of periodic, injfrequent and regular volunteers;

    (2) Apply the ordinance to non-elected officials;

    (3) follow the last paragraph and allow the council as well to terminate the problem volunteer.

    If I've read it correctly.

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  3. I read it as only the last part is necessary, at a practical level, to get rid of Gloria. The judge seems to suggest that you can avoid all these constitutional pitfalls and appearance of targeting this particular mayor and his family with generally applicable legislation by giving the council the general power to deal with disruptive volunteers. It may not be politically feasible, but legally, it's a simple and elegant solution to the problem.

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  4. Agreed. A brilliantly simple solution. It will be interesting to see how this council reacts to that advice.

    I think it's politically very feasible, and the move would be 99% guaranteed to withstand any appeal Funkhouser would inevitably make.

    And it will be just as interesting to see how our Mayor and his wife react to this ruling. This is yet another opportunity for them to take the high ground. They've had that opportunity during his entire term, and have consistently opted to behave badly.

    I think the depth of their mania may be too deep for them to chnage course now.

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  5. Pleased With Mark's VictoryJuly 31, 2009 at 9:04 PM

    Mark is heading for re-election and his wife will be an even stronger and more active advisor in the the second term.

    Probably the most important aspect of their new destiny is that they have turned away from the Democrat Party, which is dominated by somomites, Jews and socialists.

    In my opinion that was an evil group is full of hatred and the false witness of Karl Marx.

    Mark and his wife a full of love and spirit.

    The City Council is a confused and immoral group. They nearly did the bidding of filthy homosexuals by banning the Word from Kansas City.

    Yet, thanks to the leadership of Mark, Cindy Circo, John Sharp and even Melba Curls we were able to stand up to the homosexual lobby, which is aided by Jewish liberals who by definition turn their eyes away from Christ.

    Good luck with your blog Sophia but please do not be perceived by the easy, candy-coated answers that the liberal special interests have to offer.

    Again, best of luck and may the Lord be with you.

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  6. " The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
    John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963).

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