Local Government Spends $17K to Defend $5 Fee it Gave To Citizen. Only In Jersey?

By: Don Caldwell


Who watches the watchers?


A New Jersey town (Bridgewater, Somerset County) has demonstrated a systematic failing in the structure of our bureaucracies in the US today.


Excerpts italicized:

A Somerset County town spent more than $17,000 defending a $5 fee it charged a resident for a compact disc of a council meeting.


Tom Coulter filed a complaint with the New Jersey Government Record Council in October 2008, saying he should pay the actual cost of the CD to get the recording.


The state council this year sided with Coulter and found he should have paid about 96 cents.
Bridgewater paid more than $14,000 in legal fees defending the case. It had to pay $3,500 to Coulter for his legal fees and give him a $4.04 refund.


Coulter says the case shows a lack of common sense.


Township Attorney Alan Grant tells The Courier News of Bridgewater the legal fees would have been substantially lower had Coulter settled, as the township had offered.

At what point do members of our governments lose sight of what they are given responsibility to do in the first place? At what point do the governments start to feel that they are entities entitled to things by any other reason than the ones they were originally created for in the first place? At what point does a local government turn a ridiculous fee of 5$ into a stubborn (and fiscally irresponsible) crusade to punish those that do not go along with its wishes?


If one had a bad boss would you not change jobs? If one had an abusive spouse, would you not leave them? If one had an abusive government, should that government be disestablished and started anew???


While this is not the only (or first) example of bureaucracy run amok or corruption in government, it does showcase problems in our system. What can someone do when faced with such things?


Whether it be a traffic ticket given unjustly or a fee levied b the township for some fee that is seemingly invented by your government to tax you for some accused sleight of hand, we are faced with a dilemma of not knowing what to do. Is there anything we can do to fight back?


Most of us would not go to trial for five dollars or even a couple hundred, and this is perhaps the problem. A system that forces you to pay in small increments, so small that it discourages one from seeking expensive legal protections, creates a conciliatory atmosphere where no one dares to fight back.


What would happen if more of us fought these kinds of ridiculous injustices?


What if we had the power to start that local government anew?


I am not suggesting a revolution is needed, as such a thing always leads to needless chaos and loss of life, but I am expressing a need for increased power to the people that the government is supposed to serve. 


Things need to change.


Or maybe i'm making a big deal out of a small story :o)

(ORIGINAL LINK) Bridgewater spends $17K to defend $5 fee it charged resident | NJ.com