Sunday, April 20, 2003

News on Bill Weismann the alleged attempted murderer

Articles on property rights activist Bill Weismann's arrest for allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill his neighbor over an 18" wide prescriptive easement:
  • 4/12/03: Murder for hire halted ("Court records show Weismann was convicted of vandalism earlier this year, after a neighbor claimed Weismann punched him in the mouth in August 2002...")
  • 4/15/03: still in shock
    "I've always had a lot of respect for Bill," said Margaret Urke of the California Association of Business, Property and Resource Owners. "He's an extremely intelligent and intense person. He cares deeply about the things he cares about."
    Crawford Bost worked with Weismann for Citizens for Property Rights Inc....."All I can tell you is that he has not been active on anything that I know of since (the grandchild's illness)," Bost said, "and he has been under a tremendous amount of stress."

  • 4/16/03: Property spat spiralled
  • 4/20/03: The Union's commentary, Mediation can resolve property disputes

Rumor has it that the desire to see a couple of more prominent local persons dead was also expressed by a local property rights activist. Mediation would not have solved this. The problem is loose cannons, and the tolerance of them by particular factions (e.g. see the end of FReep This: How the right-wing is making itself heard, also the "The Attack on Citizen Participation in Civic Life" section of the Yubanet article on Property Rights Politics In Nevada County), not the perceived lack of a system for ruling on conflicts.

I must also take issue with The Union's once again attempting to obscure distinctions ("Seething anger - on both sides - fueled the debate over Natural Heritage 2020...") (From Dr. Ink: "If ... journalism is an art of verification rather than assertion, we must work hard in our reporting to distinguish between competing positions rather than to assert them as equal.") - anyone viewing or attending the NH2020 public meetings or reading letters to the editor of The Union could not help but be struck by the difference in tone/civility/rationality between the factions.

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