(CNSNews.com) – A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.
Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.
“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.
“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.
The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.
I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.
"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian." - Henry Ford
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges; When the Republic is at its most corrupt the laws are most numerous. - Publius Cornelius Tacitus
I don't know about this area, but I know there are rules against collecting rain water at places that have pretty dry wells. I've seen such rules at Mesa Antero near Salida. I'm not sure if it was a homeowner's association rule or city/county law, though.
Think of Colorado, by law, if on a well and not documented for it, you are not even allowed to have a garden, wash your car etc. No catching of rainwater etc. You can be given a ticket by Denver water. Couple years back a couple of state legislatures got ticketed for doing it.
As usual, the right-wing version of this story leaves out "the rest of the story." You dig a little, and you find out the TRUTH:
A claim he's plead guilty to twice already. FTA, he was given probation in 2007 for this same thing, and proceeded to close off his damn a short time after his probation ended.
In 2007, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge denied Harrington’s permits and found that he had illegally “withdrawn the water at issue from appropriation other than for the City of Medford.”
According to Paul, Harrington entered a guilty plea at the time, received three years probation and was ordered to open up the water gates.
“A very short period of time following the expiration of his probation, he once again closed the gates and re-filled the reservoirs,” Paul told CNSNews.com. “So, this has been going on for some time and I think frankly the court felt that Mr. Harrington was not getting the message and decided that they’d already given him probation once and required him to open the gates and he refilled his reservoirs and it was business as usual for him, so I think the court wanted -- it felt it needed -- to give a stiffer penalty to get Mr. Harrington’s attention.”
So, basically you have another "Sovereign Citizen"-type wacko who thinks he can flout the law and wiggle his finger in their faces because he thinks he's got a right dam up water in violation of the law.
Oh, the outrage...Oh, the tyranny
... oh.....
:Snooze
Of course all right-wing website spit out their puerile outrage-of-the-day crap, and fail to mention the rest of it... The nice thing is that whenever you see these type of stories trumpeted by the usual righties, there's always a back-story they leave out.
Democracy4Sale wrote: As usual, the right-wing version of this story leaves out "the rest of the story." You dig a little, and you find out the TRUTH:
A claim he's plead guilty to twice already. FTA, he was given probation in 2007 for this same thing, and proceeded to close off his damn a short time after his probation ended.
In 2007, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge denied Harrington’s permits and found that he had illegally “withdrawn the water at issue from appropriation other than for the City of Medford.”
According to Paul, Harrington entered a guilty plea at the time, received three years probation and was ordered to open up the water gates.
“A very short period of time following the expiration of his probation, he once again closed the gates and re-filled the reservoirs,” Paul told CNSNews.com. “So, this has been going on for some time and I think frankly the court felt that Mr. Harrington was not getting the message and decided that they’d already given him probation once and required him to open the gates and he refilled his reservoirs and it was business as usual for him, so I think the court wanted -- it felt it needed -- to give a stiffer penalty to get Mr. Harrington’s attention.”
So, basically you have another "Sovereign Citizen"-type wacko who thinks he can flout the law and wiggle his finger in their faces because he thinks he's got a right dam up water in violation of the law.
Oh, the outrage...Oh, the tyranny
... oh.....
:Snooze
Of course all right-wing website spit out their puerile outrage-of-the-day crap, and fail to mention the rest of it... The nice thing is that whenever you see these type of stories trumpeted by the usual righties, there's always a back-story they leave out.
WRONG, had you clicked on the link Otis posted, right there in black and white was the whole story including what you posted. Nothing was hidden or kept out. Key to this is you had to read the whole story, which I did. So as you guys like to say, nothing here, you were wrong, and that is that.
Like I said... outrage-of-the-day stuff. The guy plead guilty twice. Waited until his 3-year probation ended and did it again. And they slapped him down...
Wake me when you have something new to be outraged about. :Snooze
I guess no one wants to talk about the fact that the land owner had permits and the State arbitrarily decided to revoke those permits. Honestly, you lefties wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up off the ground and bit you on the hind end.
I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.
"Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian." - Henry Ford
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges; When the Republic is at its most corrupt the laws are most numerous. - Publius Cornelius Tacitus
