Facing Jail for Growing Food..

Via Raw Replay,

After her front lawn was torn up in a sewer repair, an Oak Park Michigan woman decided that rather than re-plant grass and shrubs, she’d convert the yard to five raised beds for growing vegetables. Neighbors complained to the city and now Julie Bass is facing possible jail time for violations of city code, even though the zoning code itself is so vaguely worded that it may be difficult to prove that Bass is operating outside the law.

Watch this video from Michigan’s WXYZ below, embedded via treehugger.com.

What the hell, a city telling it citizens what they can and can’t do, however no city should make laws zoning codes blocking folks from growing food. THIS IS JUST PLAIN WRONG

More at this url,

So what is suitable? From another local news report:

. . .  we asked Rulkowski why it’s not suitable.

“If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster’s dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what’s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers,” he said.

God forbid your yard doesn’t include beautiful trees, bushes and flowers. It’s your job, Oak Park citizens, to give Kevin Rulkowski pretty things to look at. According to Bass’s blog, she’s demanding her right to a jury trial. So the city plans to throw the book at her.

our attorney spoke to the prosecutor today. (for the record, my crush on him is totally finished after today.)

his position: they are going to take this all the way.

officially, this means i am facing 93 days in jail if they win.

no joke.