Sioux City, IA targets those who speak up for good government

It's a story we've heard a lot -- from places across the country. And it looks like Sioux City, IA is the next city to punish people for getting involved in the democratic process. Apparently, city officials collected the names and addresses of dog owners who testified at various City Council Meetings against the ban on 'pit bulls' the city eventually passed. Now, it turns out that these people were sent notices through the mail by the city warning them to license their pets.

City Councilman Jim Rixner called the move totally unacceptable.

"People should hae the ability to come before the council and have a passionate opinion about something and be able to express that without any fear of retaliation," Rixner said. "The potential for abuse is very frightening to me....It's a chilling effect."

Agreed.

But unfortunately, this, all too often is the story we hear.

Comments

[Anon]

Rixner is the same guy who said this??

[quote]"Pit bulls tend to become more dangerous as they age, especially in the last years of their life," Rixner stated. "Given the logic we keep spinning, the proposed ban, in fact, increases the risk of attack in the coming years."[/quote]

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2008/08/26/news/latest_news/f3161bb5c9c15532862574b1007b41b7.txt

I`m surprised he`s coming to their defense.
Maybe he`s getting smarter as he ages.
Mind you it`s only been a few months since he voiced that gem above.

[MichelleD]

WTF did they come up with that one? Probably another "pit bull rescue" site saying "You dog friendly pit bull puppy will get more aggressive as they get older". But even that doesn't explain "especially in the last years of their life"...that is one of the most assinine things I've heard in this whole debate. Worse than locking jaws but not quite as bad as "their bite is like a shark's"...

At least he admits "spinning" the "logic".

[Selma]

My eyes were rolling so hard over that good ol' logic-spnning they darned near rolled away.

Who knows where these buffoons come up with this stuff.

That's a new one on me too Michelle - the older the dog the more dangerous he becomes.

I guess there's no point in asking for a citation or anything....sigh...

[Pitties Place]

We ran into that same logic when battling it out with Ms. Thompson in Whitehall, Ohio. Her statement was a little more direct "Pit Bulls become highly aggressive when they turn seven years old." She even stated that she had an expert who would come in to testify to that "fact." Suprisingly, no expert ever appeared. In fact her only "expert" was a self proclaimed rescuer, and known crazy woman who proclaimed that she had been at a vicious dog incident in which the pit bull had latched on to a man's arm. The dog was shot dead, still latched on to the arm. No amount of prying could get the dog off of the arm, the fire department had to be called to come in with the jaws of life to get the dead dog off the man's arm. The laughter in the council chambers at that story was only surpassed by the man (recently had SWAT called to his home because he was holed up inside) who told his terrifying pit bull story. A pit bull was running loose in the street and attacked him in his car. The pit bull finally got frustrated and latched on to the car tires and shook his car around.