Gwinnett Buzz

The Snellville City Council deferred votes on two items regarding the crematory issue last night.  They did not act on the question of the air quality ordinance nor did they take up the matter of the facility’s building plans.  For now, there is no change in the situation.

Chris Nuzum is not taking the discrimination he is facing from the city of Snellville lying down.  His attorney has stated has indicated their intent to sue the city.

The attorney for the owner of a controversial crematory is ready to file a lawsuit against the city of Snellville if it tries to rule against the now-shuttered business.

…

“It was zoned that before Chris Nuzum bought it,” Moore said. “[The council] may have a different view today, but their view doesn’t hold water.”

Kelly Kautz is “pleased.”  The City of Snellville has won the latest round in its crusade against the Cremation Society of the South.  Simultaneously, the city has dealt a blow to small business and private property rights.  As a result of a Snellville Board of Appeals decision Tuesday,  the city today ordered the crematory to cease operations.  The question of whether to accept the changes to the building plan that was originally submitted to the city in comparison to what was actually built will now come before the city council.  This is the city council where several members have worked tirelessly to protect their political backsides while stomping all over Chris Nuzum’s property rights.  When this is heard, with a crowd likely packed with NIMBY neighbors of the crematory, what are the odds that the council will vote in a manner that will allow the crematory to resume business?  I would think slim to none.  Kautz and her council gang have clearly demonstrated they are more interesting in protecting their political power than protecting the rights of all members of the Snellville community.

While details of the appeals board reasoning is sketchy, one issue was the fact that the crematory has a smokestack.  That may sound like a pretty important deviation from the building plan.  However, this reason is as flimsy as tissue paper when you consider that the smokestack was build to look like a standard chimney, an architectural detail that fits perfectly for a business operating in a converted ranch-style home.  Setting aside the backdrop of the crematory controversy, residents should be apalled that the government can usurp a property owner’s rights for such a trivial point.

As is too often the case when government enters into a crusade against a private citizen, a lawsuit may be the only way for the citizen to protect his rights.  This appears to be the path that Chris Nuzum intends to follow.  Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer, one of the few fair-minded elected officials in Snellville, expects a similar course of action, saying, “It looks like we’re going to be in a lawsuit.”  As a Christian I do not support vengeance, but I do think Nuzum is well within bounds to seek redress in the court system.  The actions of those unfairly targeting his business are surely costing his business a significant amount of money.  According to the AJC, two nearby residents are behind the appeal that led to Tuesday’s decision:

Attorney Frank Jenkins, who argued Tuesday night on behalf of residents Milus and Charlene Maney, who filed the appeal, said the crematory should be shut down immediately.

While I am not an attorney, I would wonder, unless there is more impact to them other than proximity to the business and a chimney, if the Maneys have legal standing to pursue such an appeal.  (If they do, in the absence of a reasonable cause to appeal the city’s decision, the relevant ordinance should be changed such that nearby property owners cannot place their preferences over another person’s rights.)  Furthermore, even if the council were to accept the plan changes and allow the crematory to re-open, this vote may not come until November.  I would think that would give Nuzum cause to sue the city for loss of revenue.  Also, if the Maneys cannot show any substantitve cause for their appeal, Nuzum should be able to seek compensation from the couple (and perhaps get an ordinance that would such weak appeals to be overturned by the court).  If the law does not allow a victim of a specious legal action to seek such compensation, this law should be reconsidered by the state legislature in order to protect property owners from NIMBY crusades.

I find it disgraceful that as a legitimate member of the Snellville business community, operating a needed and respectable business, Chris Nuzum cannot expect simple fair treatment from several members of the Snellville City Council.  Politicians should pay for this affront to basic liberties with their jobs.  I earlier blogged that I doubted Kautz and company would be held responsible at election time since too many residents were more concerned about their wants and desires than the sanctity of property rights.  However, I take heart that the majority of comments to the AJC article are running against the NIMBY crowd.  If these commenters are other Snellville residents, perhaps there is hope that Kelly Kautz and her cohorts will not get away with their political games.  Regardless, this controversy is a frontal assault on property rights and a black eye for the City of Snellville.

Snellville City Councilwoman Kelly Kautz is continuing her politically-motivated assault on a private business.  Her proposed air quality ordinance could cost the Snellville crematory as much as $250,000 for air quality monitoring equipment.  I believe crematory owner Chris Nuzum hits the nail on the head in saying, “The city would like to make it cost prohibitive so we would have to close shop.”

These actions show that elected officials like Kelly Kautz are what is wrong with government.  She says she “doing this for the health of our citizens and our environment”, though this assertion rings hollow given that the need for or efficacy of this ordinance is questionable at best.  If Nuzum is right, Kautz is apparently willing to use the power of government to effectively put a legal business whose owner has followed all laws out of commission.  This is an absolute disgrace.  I do not know if Snellville has a recall law, but I would hope that someone would investigate whether such a citizen response is possible.  Regardless, if this is the disdain that a Snellville elected official shows to private business in her city, I am inclined to no longer spend any money with businesses within the Snellville city limits.  I hate to harm innocent businesses, but I would hope that eventually Snellville residents would realize that such behavior on the part of elected officials is absolutely unacceptable and would act to keep Snellville from being a dangerous precedence for other local governments.

This is another of those articles that I missed during last month’s blogging slowdown.  It is a little dated but I wanted to bring closure to a story I followed closely this summer.  In late August, Chick-fil-a in Snellville removed the the curb cut to Westridge Drive that was first approved then denied by the City of Snellville.  After completion of construction, the restanrant intended to approach the City about restitution for construction and removal costs but I have seen no reports as to whether the City would reimburse the restaurant.  If you know what came of this situation, please respond to this post and let us know.

Snellville City Council member Kelly Kautz is continuing her efforts to shore up her political standing. Unfortunately, to do so, she is recklessly pushing government overregulation. Due to my travels early last month, I never blogged about the opening of the Snellville crematory.  Despite politically-inspired efforts by Kautz and other council members to deny crematory owner Chris Nuzum’s property rights, City Manager Russell Treadway found that concerns over crematory emissions were unwarranted.  This apparently was not the end of the matter for some council members.  The council “voted for a new ordinance allowing city employees to regulate the emissions by various methods.”  Two weeks later, the city attorney informed the council that they had no authority to regulate emissions.  Kautz was undeterred as she and fellow council member Robert Jenkins both expressed disagreement with the attorney’s conclusion.  I must pause to observe: if you are simply going to brush aside the opinion of a city attorney, an attorney who by definition is acting on behalf of the City, then what is the point of having that city attorney offer advice?  To be fair, Kautz is an attorney herself so she may have a legal leg on which to stand.  However, Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer has noted that she is not an environmental lawyer but rather a trial lawyer.  This leads to reasonable skepticism over Kautz’s latest move.

Last week Kautz introduced a draft of an ordinance which limits the levels of “mercury and dioxin/furan emissions for any incinerator of bodies, body parts or infectious wastes.”  So what are the qualifications of a small-town lawyer, whose own law firm and campaign websites do not state any expertise in environmental law or science, to draft such a technical, scientific ordinance?  Apparently none since she could not explain in laymen’s terms what the ordinance limited.  She stated that the language “was modeled after a Pennsylvania ordinance, which was modeled after the Clean Air Act.”  Is it not clear what is going on here?

As I have been saying, this is nothing but politics.  Kautz is pushing this unnecessary law to rebuild her political capital.  You might think that since the crematory has opened that Kautz is motivated by simple concern for Snellville’s residents.  Perhaps, but there have been no reasonable questions raised in this case over air quality.  All such questions have appeared high political.  Also, the efficacy of a single town attempting to regulate air quality, something that would likely have to be done on a larger scale, is highly questionable.  If this were a legitimate effort to impact air quality, why is Kautz proposing a rushed “cut and paste” ordinance rather taking the time to consult with air quality experts in order to draft a more scientifically researched law?  I suspect that Kautz is continuing to push this matter in order to build a case that her opposition to the crematory was well-founded and not simply political.  Unfortunately for Kautz, the events of recent months do not bear this out.

What is clearly going on in Snellville is a continuation of the political games that started in the summer.  The residents of Snellville should see through this and, even if they were opposed to the crematory, recognize that the politicians are doing little more than pandering to them.  I would also hope that voters would recognize the circumstances and background of this case and respect Chris Nuzum’s property rights.  Sadly, based on a comment made at a council meeting last month, Kautz and company’s efforts are paying political dividends.

“For the council members that have tried their best … to fight for us, we thank you,” [Eric] Bonaparte said, but added that he’s disappointed in those on the other side of the debate.

I hope that the council will stop the political games and vote down this ordinance.  Leave a complex task such as regulating air quality to scientific experts at a state or federal level.  Political pandering is insulting enough on its own, but pushing ill-conceived laws for the personal benefit of politicians is how we wind up with tangled webs of government regulations that increase costs of doing business and stifle small enterprise.

You knew this would happen.  It was pretty much inevitable.  As a result of the crematory flap, the threat of lawsuits now hang over the City of Snellville like a dark cloud.  City Attorney Michael Williams figures the city can bat 0.500 against these suits.  I am not an attorney, but I think Williams’ assessment is about right.  In my opinion, the likely outcomes of these two lawsuits are fairly obvious.

One one hand, the residents near the proposed crematory have gathered money for an attorney and have been a general thorn in the side of the Snellville City Council.  However, as I have asked here before, what exactly is the legal point they would make?  The council is under no legal obligation to enact ordinances to prohibit a crematory from operating on the property in question.  Perhaps, the residents do have an argument about diminished property value but, not being an attorney, I don’t know if that would pass legal muster either.

On the other hand, Chris Nuzum, owner of the crematory, would appear to have a pretty solid claim against the city if the council does not call a halt to its games and issue a Certificate of Occupancy in short order.  Nuzum has followed the rules but now a few members of council are using his property in a game of political football.  Even Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer sees this in saying, “Basically, we didn’t follow our own rules and we denied him the right of due process.”  I am not a fan of suing at the drop of a hat, but, when it comes to holding the government accountable for infringing on property rights, I am all for calling in the attorneys.  As such, I am glad to see that Nuzum is considering seeking restitution of any lost revenue from the City of Snellville.  Hopefully, the council members most responsible for these games will wind up losing more votes from other residents in Snellville who have to pay these games than the votes that would be gained by playing politics for crematory opponents.

Finally, I want to highlight a point made in the article.  I am not sure if there are any stragglers that do not see the political game here, but in case a few remaining Snellville residents think that the council is just doing its job, I thought this was very instructive.

The council doesn’t usually get involved in the permit process, overseen by the planning department.

This morning I stopped at the Snellville Chick-fil-a for breakfast on my way to work.  As I came around the back of the building, I noticed construction equipment working on the side entrance that was the subject of much controversy earlier this summer.  I can only assume that the restaurant has decided not to fight the decision of the City of Snellville and is going to return the entrance to its original state.  If anyone has any definite information, please post it.

The Georgia State Board of Funeral Service has issued a license to Chris Nuzum to operate his crematory in Snellville. I found one of the pieces of documentation that the state board reviewed quite interesting:

On Tuesday, the Georgia State Board of Funeral Service reviewed his application, the inspection report and the certificate of zoning issued by Snellville before giving Nuzum the go-ahead.

If the city has already issued a certificate of zoning, why is Councilmen Robert Jenkins still raising the question of whether the location is appropriate for a crematory? Furthermore, if there is such a major concern about the health and environmental impacts of a crematory, why didn’t the council undertake its current research before creating a zoning code that permitted such a use in that location?

If you had any doubts that the council was acting out of pure politics, those doubts should be fading by now.

When I thought I could not find much more to say about the Snellville crematory controversy, I read the account of Monday’s night meeting and I could not wait to get to my keyboard.  The latest meeting did not just feature a figurative assault on property rights but also an alleged threat of physical assault.  Councilman Robert Jenkins alleged that Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer “[asked] the councilman to ‘take it outside.’”  While I certainly do not sanction physical threats, I find Jenkins’ statement that he “will not be bullied” to be rather ironic.  He rightfully does not want to be physically bullied if the incident with Oberholtzer occurred, yet he is perfectly willing to play the bully to crematory owner Chris Nuzum and Nuzum’s property rights.

City Manager Russell Treadway provided a summary of his research on the the environmental effects of crematories.  I don’t want to be too critical of Mr. Treadway because he is not an elected official and is effectively caught in the middle of this political vaudeville show staged by Jenkins and Kautz.  However, as the individual who is reportedly conducting the research into this question, a question over which Snellville’s authority is not even clear, I have to question if he has the necessary credentials to assess the body of research on this topic.  Mr. Treadway’s background is in government management not scientific research.  Is he qualified to assess which research is reliable and which may not be?  However, in reality, this question is immaterial because the history of this case clearly shows that this investigation is not about scientific matters, but rather it is about politics. Councilwoman Kelly Kautz said “The bottom line is that there is the potential for pollution with this crematory.”  What Kautz should have said was, “The bottom line is that we have stepped in a hornets nest and these residents are going to vote me out of office if I do not give into them no matter whose property rights get trampled.”

The time to be concerned about whether a crematory was an appropriate use was when the city established its zoning code.  Once the law is in place, residents and property owners alike should be able to count on the rule of law being upheld.  The rule of law is critical in our system to ensure that our rights are protected from the tyranny of the majority.  To attempt to set aside that law - a law that has been followed appropriately by a property owner - in order to protect political power is simply un-American.  Sadly, rather than being held accountable in the next election for this assault on property rights, Jenkins and Kautz have a better chance of retaining their seats by sacrificing Mr. Nuzum’s rights on the altar of political gamesmamship.  I just hope that Mr. Nuzum tracks every last cent that this charade costs him.  While there is likely no way to seek restitution from the local residents who have egged on these politicians, I hope he is willing to sue the City of Snellville for these costs as well as any punitive damages allowed by law.  Standing up to abusive government practices and demanding that our rights be upheld and seeking full restitution is the only way we can hope to slow the assult on property rights.