The city of Dunedin Florida
wants to take this man’s home.
Because I was tardy cutting the grass
Jim Dicken’s mom died so he went to South Carolina
to take care of her estate.
City officials then started fining Ficken $500 a day
because his grass had grown longer than ten inches.
Such fines add up.
This is a letter, from the city attorney,
demanding $24,454 dollars
Now the fine is up to $30,000.
That’s asinine!
Ficken’s neighbor can’t believe he was fined so much.
Just for grass!
Because Ficken doesn’t have $30,000,
the city says it will foreclose on his home
to collect the fine.
I was shocked.
The town says you're kind of a public nuisance.
I got everything fixed and taken care of
You only get it fixed after they send warning
after warning, the neighbors complain
I guess I'm kind of a slob.
Why don't you just pay the fine?
$30,000.
Do you have $30,000 lying around?
In every instance that the city asked him to
do something, Jim did it.
Lawyer Ari Bargil is defending Ficken against Dunedin.
The city has gone nuclear.
$500 per day for the violation of having tall grass,
and now he's facing the loss of his home.
[Nature]
Dunedin’s politicians wouldn’t talk to us.
Instead, they paid 25,000
for this public relations firm to speak to the media.
The new PR manager
costing taxpayers 25,000 dollars for just one month.
The PP firms says,
“Dunedin has no desire to impose large fines”
their goal is just to
“ensure that Dunedin is a high-quality community”
But if the politicians only cared about
the quality of the lawns
They could have done what their own ordinances
permit them to do, which is hire a lawn service
to come out and mow the grass,
and send Jim a bill for 150 bucks,
but they didn't do that.
They could do that.
They absolutely can do that, but they didn't do that.
And that's because they prioritize revenue collection.
They want the money.
It's pretty apparent that code enforcement
is a major cash cow for the city of Dunedin.
11 years ago Dunedin collected $34,000 in fines.
Last year, $1.3 million
I got violated for a lawn mower in my yard
they violated me for a hole,
the size of a quarter, in my stucco.
They find people they can pick on
and they then keep picking on them.
Dunedin put a lien on her house.
They say she owes them $32,000
I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights
I’ve had because of the city of Dunedin.
Just try to think of what to say to them
just to have them leave me alone
The city is just a bunch of bullies,
and they expect people not to stand up to em’
because to stand up to em’
requires expensive legal help.
Ficken managed to get that legal help for free
from the Institute for Justice,
a law firm that defends individuals
abused by governments.
[Music]
Its lawyers, portraying themselves in this video as
western heroes ready to punish bad guys,
say many cities now pad their budgets
by imposing excessive fines.
A North Carolina city fined a local church
$100 a branch for excessive tree pruning.
Private citizens are being, essentially,
extorted by their governments,
and fined incredible amounts of money
for really, really small violations.
And if you can’t pay the fine,
they’ll take your home.
The city of Dunedin code enforcement board
authorized the city’s attorney’s office
to file foreclosure actions.
The City Attorney of Dunedin, in the last year,
has sought permission to foreclose on 18 properties.
That violates the 8th amendment,
says the Institute for Justice.
It not only protects us from
cruel and unusual punishment,
But right next to that 8th Amendment is a
protection to be free from excessive fines.
Our Founders, they recognized that the ability to fine
is the ability to cripple.
It's one of the ways, other than incarceration,
that government can really oppress.
If governments can, they will.
So we should be grateful for the 8th amendment.
It protects us from excessive fines and
what’s more excessive than politicians
taking your home because you didn’t cut your grass?
[Mower sounds]