Col. 4, Dec. 2008: Citizens prevail when willing to protest

Freedom Fight

by Christina Hazelwood
Since August of 2008, some citizens of Thailand have been protesting against their government’s corruption. When their protests repeatedly fell on deaf ears, the Thai citizens stepped up the level and scope of their demonstrations until finally in early December, they prevailed after shutting down the country’s two main airports, crippling tourism.

The citizens, who call themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), were protesting election fraud by the ruling political party and called for the removal of Thailand’s Prime Minister Somachai Wongsawat. The PAD charged Minister Wongsawat with being a puppet leader for his brother-in-law, the ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a 2006 coup, and subsequently fled the country to avoid corruption charges.

Shortly after the airport demonstrations began, Thailand’s Constitutional Court voted to dissolve the top three ruling political parties for election fraud and barred Prime Minister Wongsawat from politics for five years. The Court decided against hearing the minister’s or his political party’s defense pleas. Prime Minister Wongsawat said he accepts the court ruling and will step down from his post.

Whatever your point of view may be about the protests and political activities taking place in Thailand, one thing is clear, when the citizens of a country ban together enmasse and take to the streets to let their wishes be known, eventually they will prevail, even against a corrupt government. It brings to mind that well-known axiom, "The people get the government they deserve."

Just as in Thailand, if we, Americans, make our voices heard and protest the ever-encroaching moves against our freedom, we will prevent the powers that be from slowly eroding them away. One example of this kind of encroachment at the local level, is an ordinance that the village of Westmont, Illinois, is attempting to pass. After much protest from village residents, the board held a public hearing December 2, 2008, to hear views on the matter. The overflowing crowd, voiced a multitude of concerns, problems and issues with the rights-eroding Multi-Family Licensing Ordinance.

One provision of the proposed ordinance requires anyone who owns more than three living units to apply to the village for a license costing up to $145 per building with an additional $10 per unit, to be paid yearly. If not paid in a timely manner, the village will charge an additional 20 percent per year. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 4,524 occupied rental units in Westmont. By applying that number to the building percentages provided by the village at the hearing, the village stands to rake in $250,000 annually, in license fees alone. This amount does not include the $50 inspection fee with, an additional $50 for each reinspection, nor does it include code violation fees, building upgrade and repair costs.

According to the village, 59 percent of its structures are rental properties. Landlords who own these structures have no alternative, but to pass these government fees onto their tenants in the form of rent increases. It’s curious that in the midst of a recession, the Westmont village board is attempting to place a hidden tax on more than half of its residents, the half who can least afford it, renters with typically low incomes. The financial aspects of this ordinance are, however, the least of its dangers.

The ordinance requires property owners to provide the village with their name, birth date, address, work and home telephone numbers, as well as the same information for any building managers, janitorial and maintenance staff. Why is this intrusive data needed and how does knowing the age of owners, managers and staff assist the village in policing rental property?

In order to obtain a license, owners must sign a document giving their non revocable consent to allow the village and its personnel to trespass, enter and access any portion of their property, both exterior and interior, and to pay for any associated costs. Property owners are essentially being forced to sign away their own property and privacy rights, as well as those of their tenants.

The village ordinance requires that rental property owners live within the vicinity of Westmont or appoint someone to provide the village with keys and access to every portion of their property whenever the village feels like doing an inspection. Plus the village requires landlords to have available for village viewing: employment contracts, property sales contracts, their tenants’ rental applications, their tenants’ rental agreements and a record of the costs of repairs, alterations and decorations done to each unit over a three-year period.

In addition landlords are forced to give the village access to their tenants’ private home, although by law, the landlords, themselves, are not allowed enter their tenants’ units. The village also requires landlords to police tenants’ vehicles and absorb the cost for removing any that no longer function.

The village requires that all rental agreements include a provision that the tenant must sign that allows the village to conduct inspections of their homes upon a 24-hour notice. This provision clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states that it is the right of the people "...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."

The fourth amendment is further violated by requiring landlords to have on hand and available for village viewing the name, address, birth date, social security number, driver’s license number, home and work telephone number of each tenant, along with a copy of the tenant’s driver’s license and a list of all the places where the tenant resided in the past three years. Not only has the village of Westmont become big brother, it is requiring landlords to do the dirty work for them. The fact that the village is even considering such an ordinance is a frightening prospect.

Even more alarming, is the fact that the Westmont village board fashioned their ordinance after one already on the books in the village of Woodridge. This offers some explanation for the curiously lower housing values in Woodridge versus surrounding communities. But it does not explain how the citizens of Woodridge allowed their government to pass a law that tramples their privacy rights and blatantly violates the fourth amendment. Woodridge citizens were clearly asleep at the wheel when the law was passed on August 7, 2008, opening the door for neighboring communities, like Westmont, to attempt to slip through similar legislation.

The village of Park Forest, Illinois, agreed to retract a similar ordinance after it was struck down as unconstitutional by U.S. District Court Judge Joan Gottschall on February, 23, 1998, after a three and half year court case filed by the Institute of Justice on behalf of single-family housing tenants. Since the Woodridge ordinance and the proposed Westmont ordinance confine their intrusiveness to multi-family units and to landlords who own more than three dwellings, the two villages probably figured that allowed them to avoid dealing with the pesky issue of constitutionality.

The Westmont mayor’s response to a citizen’s inquiry, at the hearing, was telling. The citizen asked Mayor Bill Rahn what pressing problem the village board hoped to solve by passing such an ordinance, to which the mayor responded, "I don’t have to answer that." The mayor went on to inform the citizen that, in fact, the board did not even have to hold the public hearing at all.

Luckily, I have never lived in Westmont, and based upon this information, hope my good fortune continues.

Apparently local governmental officials in Westmont and elsewhere are free to pass laws as they choose, with no need to consider the needs, wants, or wishes of the people over whom they rule. This sounds like the same problem the citizens of Thailand are having. If this is the sentiment held by a local mayor, consider the potential attitudes held at the state and federal levels. The arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich may give us a clue about just how pervasive such flippant attitudes are among our political leadership. It is only the will of Americans and the repeated expression of it that maintains our freedoms in this country. Please make your voice heard and your wishes known.

Associated Links

Village of Westmont
Woodridge Multi-Family Licensing Ordinance

Black v. Village of Park Forest & Institute of Justice