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| 2/20/2008 2:11:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Town challenged on address sign law
Resident threatens lawsuit alleging littering, slavery among other things
Patricia Bogumil
Staff Writer
The Town of Burlington has been notified of a resident's intent to file a lawsuit that accuses town officials of a wide array of offenses, ranging from littering to slavery.
At issue is the town's Uniform Numbering System Ordinance, which requires each township property to display an outdoor address marker.
Town workers usually install a metal sign - about four feet tall and bearing a home's street number - in the yard near the street of each property so the house numbers can be clearly seen by emergency workers and others.
The ordinance also assigns the job of day-to-day maintenance of the sign to the property owner, which town resident Donald Schlesak says is unconstitutional.
"Their ordinance requires me to maintain it, which is involuntary servitude and slavery, which is against the Constitution," he explained in a telephone conversation Feb. 18.
Schlesak's Intent to File a Lawsuit was formally read into the record at the Town Board's Feb. 14 meeting.
If filed, the suit will seek $150,000 each in damages from the Town of Burlington, all its Town Board members, Police Chief Michael Sevick, Police Lt. Steve Miller, Police Officer Randy Nelson, the town's prosecuting attorney, Town Clerk Adelheid Streif and Town Administrator Diane Baumeister.
The lawsuit will be filed, Schlesak said, unless he and the town can come to an amicable agreement.
That apparently won't be easy.
The Town Board unanimously voted Feb. 14 to deny Schlesak's claim, which is being handled by Glatfelter Claims Management on behalf of American Alternative Insurance Corporation, the public official liability carrier for Town of Burlington.
Schlesak is currently due in town municipal court Feb. 25 to answer a citation issued by town police against him for failing to display the uniform number marker in his yard.
He is prepared to argue that town workers ignored a posted "No Trespassing" sign and criminally trespassed onto his property to install the number marker in his yard.
He alleges that requiring private property to be used for public purposes constitutes a "taking" of that property, which is against the Constitution.
After town workers installed the yard sign for Schlesak's house on South Honey Lake Road, the sign went missing.
The penalty for not having a yard sign is a fine that ranges from $50 to $500. The fine can be applied for each day a yard sign is missing.
Replacement costs, to be paid by a homeowner, are $45 for the sign and $25 for the post, for a total of $70.
In municipal court, Schlesak is prepared to argue the constitutionality of the ordinance that both requires him to maintain the sign and pay to replace a sign that goes missing.
"It disappeared - who knows how it happened," said Schlesak, pointing to other incidents of theft and vandalism that occur routinely in his neighborhood.
In his Notice of Intent, Schlesak further complains that a town officer who tried to serve him with the citation dropped the paperwork and littered it onto the ground at his home when Schlesak did not agree to accept it.
Schlesak credits his keen interest in upholding the personal rights and freedom guaranteed by the Constitution as the motivating force behind his threatened lawsuit.
Schlesak, 66, said he was born in Nazi-occupied Croatia and grew up in Communist-ruled Croatia. He took a solemn oath to defend the Constitution of the United States when he became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
He warned that people need to actively defend their Constitutional rights before they have no rights to defend. He said that already many rights have been given up.
Schlesak said he had never been notified that his Notice of Intent to File a Lawsuit had been placed on the Town Board agenda Feb. 14.
He also said he had not been notified of the board's decision to deny his claim that evening.
Baumeister, the town administrator, said that a certified mail letter was sent to Schlesak Feb. 15 notifying him of the board's Feb. 14 decision.
In the past, Schlesak has refused to accept delivery of other certified letters that the town mailed to him, she said.
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