Addressing Property Owner Mike Riahi's Request to Legally Divide his East Grand Rapids Lot.

Text of letter submitted to Grand Rapids Press Public Pulse (The Press called and confirmed submission, but failed to print it before Riahi revoked his request. I decided to pull the letter.)

"Author James Bovard once insightfully quipped 'Democracy must be
something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for
dinner.' This quote is particularly amusing in the context of the
recent debacle over property owner Mike Riahi's request to divide his
East Grand Rapids lot into two legal lots. Although I run the risk of
inciting public uproar, utterly confusing our esteemed City Council
members, and disrupting their lamebrained plan to impose a moratorium
on one's ability to make a decision regarding their own private
property, I am compelled to state an obvious truth understood and
embraced by every generation of American since the inception of this
Great Country. So here goes:  the right to private property and its
physical resources - including to right to control the use of,
transfer, sell and exclude others from - is and has always been a
fundamental cornerstone of American society, one that is enshrined in
legal and philosophical writings dating back to the dawning of
Enlightened civilization and arguably the guiding light of our
forefathers as they compiled their list grievances against the
tyrannical rule of the British Crown in 1776. That two East Grand
Rapids elites have so easily intimidated the City Council into
reconsidering the right of Mr. Riahi to make a perfectly legal
decision regarding his own private property is a profoundly sad
testament to the influence that powerful wolves have over principled
sheep - even in West Michigan."