Consumerist
A Pennsylvania man was arrested for making too many complaints on behalf of his neighborhood to get the local government to enforce noise and air quality laws against a concrete manufacturer across the street from him. Silhol Builders Supply makes ready-mix cement and neighbors say they're awoken by noise at 2 in the morning from the trucks, and that cement dust coats their windows. Marshall Pappert was appointed the neighborhood pointman to try to prod the local government to action, sending scores of letters and leaving phone messages. It was three messages left with borough Manager Lori Collins that brought the backlash. In them he called for her to resign and accused her of breaking promises to collect and test dust samples from neighborhood homes. She found this harassing and called the cops. Pappert is appealing his conviction. It's a sad day when someone gets arrested just for asking the government to do its job.Team 4: Complaining Bridgeville Neighbor Arrested For Harassment [The Pittsburgh Channel] (Thanks to Steve!)
Comments
I think I'd like to pick up some of that "ready-mix complaint." That's some good stuff!
;-)
The thought of this is actually a little chilling. These people are pretty much elected to be complained to. The saying "if you can't take the heat, maybe you should give back the kickbacks you are obviously receiving from the concrete company and resign" seem to apply.
Borough Manager Lori Collins probably just lost her job. Unless calls were really rude and threating, she had no grounds.
BAD PR! Run!
The geeky law student in me is intrigued by the conflict between a First Amendment right to petition and the Harassment statutes.
Any constitutional lawyers care to comment?
This shows you how bogus the crime of "harassment" is. This cannot be constitutional. :-\
If you can't stand the heat, get out of elective office, Ms. Collins.
IANAL, of course, but I'm pretty sure the assertion that the law he violated is unconstitutional is correct. His actions don't appear to meet any of the conditions required to consider them unprotected by the First Amendment (yelling fire in a crowded theater, for example).
What bothers me more is the town got their little kangaroo court to convict the guy. That judge should not be a judge. I'd put money on the guy winning on appeal, at least, when he managed to get his case past small-town politics.
IANAL, but harrassment or nuisance statutes are widely abused in any case, but should in no way apply to public officials. Threatening communications would be beyond their scope.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." First Amendment black letter, as they say, made applicable to lower levels of government by the 14th Amendment.
Be a good citizen and don't ask too many questions... Or else...
It sounds like this neighborhood has a horrible problem, but if you're relentlessly sending "videos and letters and just about everything I could to just about every government agency I could think of" and leaving multiple angry voicemails, yeah...the people on the receiving end are going to start wondering if you're unhinged and possibly dangerous.
Again, it sounds like his neighborhood has been seriously screwed over, but it also sounds like this guy immediately went the "crazy guy with access to phone numbers and emails" route.
Me thinks this needs to hit digg, how fast wiill the town officals cave when they get caught up in a internet shit storm.
"Silhol Builders Supply makes ready-mix complaint..."
Excellent Freudian typo.
Bogats arrested Pappert on a charge of harassment, which is a criminal summary offense.
"In that voice mail that he left, did he curse?" Parsons asked.
"No," Bogats said.
"Did he threaten?" Parsons asked.
"No," Bogats said.
While it's true that simply calling someone repeatedly may constitute harrassment, it's this woman's job to field complaints such as this. To have him arrested is a bit ridiculous and indicative of the quashing of civil rights in small-town America that's referenced in the article. It wouldn't surprise me if the owner of the concrete manufacturer is friendly with everyone in "power" in this town.
"Silhol Builders Supply makes ready-mix complaint"
Ready Mix Complaint, now THERE'S an industry I never thought of, unless that's just another name for Complaint Forms.
@SVreader:
sounds like this guy immediately went the "crazy guy with access to phone numbers and emails" route.
Um, isn't that kind of modus operandi here at Consumerist?
As someone with urban planning experience, I wish we could get some more information. What (if any) is the zoning in the neighborhood? If there is zoning, how does it reconcile two incompatible land uses like this? Businesses such as concrete plants usually have minimum distances they must be from residential and school uses. How long has the concrete plant been there? How long have the residences been there?
See PDF at markskatz.com/Penn.pdf. This is WEAK.
In the offense definition (a), parts 1-3 are physical acts, 4 includes "lewd, lascivious, threatening or obscene words, language, drawings or caricatures;" 5 "communicates repeatedly in an anonymous manner;" 6 "communicates repeatedly at extremely inconvenient hours;" (he left VOICEMAIL!), and 7, vaguely, "communicates repeatedly in a manner other than specified in
paragraphs (4), (5) and (6)." Seven cannot, in my lay estimation, withstand scrutiny, and nothing else applies.
Further, section (e) makes the law inapplicable "to any constitutionally protected activity."
@EBone: All the NIMBY arguments in the world don't defend the unconstitutional arrest of this citizen. Undo that injustice and I'll join you in discussing who is right and wrong on zoning, environmental laws, noise statutes, and the like, but not till then.
ready-mix complaint
hehe
@punkrawka:
Exactly what I was thinking.
I hope the ACLU mops the floor with these people.
The problem the government has is that when they did inspections they found actionable violations.
He is angry and complaining because his neighborhood is in poor condition due to a business and the local government isn't doing anything about it.
It's amazing how people hate complainers who point out that they are not doing their job.
@SVreader:
He did not threaten, use profanity or any such thing. He asked reasonable questions. The officials stated they would perform certain services, and failing to do so, he has called and written until they do perform such services. Nothing illegal about that. These people work FOR him and the community...he does not work for them.
The good news here is that the local head of the ACLU has been very effective in these types of cases. Being on the right side helps, but he's successfully won cases where it was less cut and dry.
@SVreader: He sent some letters, was ignored, sent some more letters, was ignored, called some people, was ignored, and on and on.
If that's crazy (hint: it isn't) then what sort of non-crazy method should he have used? Smoke signals? An awareness concert? A bakesale?
OMG, harrassment when you call someone repeatedly who's job it is to field complaints? I fear some of the companies on the "worst companies" list are going to get some ideas from this...
@Techguy1138: Also known as "hypocrisy".
Why go to all the effort to maliciously prosecute this guy when they could have just done their job long ago and not gotten any more complaints from him?
Based on the crimes code, shouldn't Mr. Pappert be able to have the entire cement plant arrested due to harassment?
@bobpence: I agree with you 100%. It's the elected representative's responsibility to listen to her constituent's complaints. He should never have been locked up for that.
I was just curious how two such polar opposite land uses could be co-located in the first place.
For once, I hope he sues the borough and gets enough of a shit-load of cash to buy himself and his neighbors some of those foreclosed properties in a nice neighborhood.
I'm a seasoned internet veteran, but I've never seen "I anal" used in any of the contexts that its currently being used in. I'm leaving this thread for fear of what may follow.
I hope this story ends up everywhere and the manager and everyone involved with arresting this guy reaps what they sowed.
It sounds like he didn't actually do anything harassing. But sadly this doesn't surprise me. I have seen some really ugly biases when it involves smaller local government. Think HOA with the ability to arrest someone.
lawsuit!
As usual, there is probably more to this story that what's contained in this post.
@corporateamericabites: That's why they've invented something called hyperlinks.
I live near Kirkwood MO. where that Black man went to a evening town hall meeting and shot and killed six or seven people because he was pissed about the cops hassling him about stupid shit related to his business. Moral of the story, be careful who you piss off because they may just show up and shoot you in the face.
Sounds like the town should now have a rally and have EVERY single person in town leave a voicemail and send a letter. Do it every day. Are they going to arrest the entire neighborhood before they actually do their job?
I'm tempted to say there's more to the story, but cops can be pretty wierd about "harassment" issues.
On one hand people abuse them all the time (as in above?), on the other hand people report slightly abnormal behaviors that cops can't really act on, then get raped/killed/etc by the person they reported as harassing them ...
@SVreader: Wait, didn't you just describe our beloved EECB, but applied to the government?
I think before anyone in those offices could say he was harassing they should have investigated the claims (assuming he wasn't making threats of violence of course).
I'm pretty damn sure this is unconstitutional - being in a public office strips you of a lot of the same level of protection. For example, false statements about a public official require evidence of actual malice for a defamation suit (in the states with which I am familiar) - and that's a civil statute. Actually... that's a civil statute in Pennsylvania.
It's not the law here, as far as I can tell, it's the application.
Lord, how I want to see that District judge get a serious lashing.
For your EECBing pleasure:
[www.bridgevilleboro.com]
Business Office
425 Bower Hill Road
Bridgeville, PA 15017
(412) 221-6012
FAX (412) 257-8854
Mayor
Donald Dolde: mayordolde@bridgevilleboro.com
Members of Council
Joseph Mizia, President: jmizia@bridgevilleboro.com
Nino Petrocelli, Sr., Vice President: npetrocelli@bridgevilleboro.com
Mary Weise, Council Member: mweise@bridgevilleboro.com
Terry Herbick, Council Member: therbick@bridgevilleboro.com
Michael Chiodo, Council Member: mchiodo@bridgevilleboro.com
Pasquale DeBlasio, Jr., Council Member: pdiblasio@bridgevilleboro.com
Jason Sarasnick, Council Member: jsarasnick@bridgevilleboro.com
Borough Manager
Lori Collins: lcollins@bridgevilleboro.com
hmmmm sounds like the local government official would rather punish the complainer instead of do their job & possibly alienate a local business.
This reminds me of the story of the couple charged with "stalking" because they complained repeatedly to a police chief about a particular police officer who routinely sped thru their neighborhood.
I think this fella should grab a lawyer as much as I hate them. There is such a thing in the Consititution "... and to petition the government for redress.". The city just made it a Constitutional issue. Bad move.
@EBone:
Zoning doesn't matter when there is a residential receiver for noise and I'm pretty sure air quality too (I only do noise).
The concrete factory was probably already there when he moved in and decided to triple capacity or something. I wonder what the noise ordinance, if any, says about that. Probably says that they can't be doing work at 2 am. Just a guess.
The reason the govt. has "harrasment"and "hate" crimes legislation is for their use in prosecuting citizens whenever they feel like making a point. In this case you have a former housewife who apparently is fond of (ab)using her power and does NOT like to be criticized.
@trujunglist: My point is, zoning typically prohibits such incompatible land uses from occurring in close proximity to each other.
Of course, it could be like Houston was in the 1970s and 80s, when there was no zoning, and people could (and did) open up 24-hour tile cutting businesses in the middle of a residential block after tearing down the existing house, and the neighbors could do nothing about it.
FYI, Google Maps image of the area. Note the homes behind the plant.
@howie_in_az: Wow. That is some shit-awful urban planning going on there.
Holy shit, everyone remember what happened last time a citizen's fight with a concrete plant made headlines?
[en.wikipedia.org]
A smart local government would have hired this gentleman.