The recent thread regarding expired Notary dates reminded me of something. Approximately 30 years ago my City annexed a fairly large area to provide water/sewer services tp a large "desireable" employer. The "Annexation Agreement" contains about 40 conditions affecting both parties that have to be met in order for the annexation to occur. By the itme you get to about the fourth one your eyebrows are raised and you are thinking (really?). By the time you get to about the tenth one you are realizing that there is no way that these "conditions" can ever be met. By the time you make it through them all you are amazed that anyone could draft such a ridiculous document. You turn to the signature page and see that apparently both parties involved must have realized the same thing, for neither party signed them! But guess what? The City Council voted to annex the property, and the "desireable" employer has all the City water/sewer service they needed! I guess signatures aren't as important as we would like to think...
You can't argue with City Hall...they're already bought and paid for.
By this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence.
It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech?
In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.
- Wendell Berry
P&R, James. Please.
Is the "desirable employer" paying sewer and water fees, and taxes, to the city, then? I mean is the annexed area actually part of the city, or is this just a quid pro quo money for services deal? And is the unsigned annexation deal just a "color of title" recorded to give cover to the city fathers of the day?
If you ever come to Georgia, look me up for a good beer and a civil argumentative discussion. Iron sharpens iron.
Fully annexed - taxes being paid. I mentioned it to an attorney friend once and he chuckled...