By Scott Rohter<\/a> \u00a0February 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I was a young man in my early twenties I\u00a0drove all the way \u00a0from Chicago to the Deep South… right to the\u00a0heart of Dixie.\u00a0The year was 1971. I had just lost my job at the United States Post Office.. Yes in those days there actually was a United States Post Office! The Vietnam War was winding down, and my selective service lottery number was way up in the mid 300\u2019s so there\u00a0wasn’t any\u00a0chance\u00a0that I was going to get drafted. I had just graduated from High School about a year earlier and I\u00a0was\u00a0very lucky to get hired right out of school by the United States Post Office. It was somewhere around Christmas time. That was my first real job, and\u00a0a<\/span><\/span><\/span>fter a one year stint as a letter carrier, which\u00a0was one of the best and\u00a0at the same time one of the most boring jobs that I have ever had in my life, I bought a brand new 1971 Volkswagen bus with the money\u00a0that\u00a0I\u00a0saved,\u00a0and this young, naive northern boy headed\u00a0straight for the heart of Dixie on my very first adventure in life. I was young. I had long hair. And I was from Chicago, which had recently\u00a0been the home\u00a0of the Democratic National Convention\u00a0in 1969, and the well-publicized\u00a0Chicago riots caused by the Chicago Seven and the infamous Students for a Democratic Society.\u00a0But I was no radical hippie.\u00a0On first blush I might have looked like a radical hippie, but\u00a0I was not even interested in politics back then.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
My selective service number in the lottery that year was going to be one of the last numbers that would be called and so with the war winding down, in the summer of 1971 I purchased my brand new Volkswagen bus and I headed straight for Alabama eager to see the rest of the country. I modified the van so I could sleep in it while I was on the road and with great fanfare and expectation I bid my parents good bye. It was the first time that I had ever\u00a0gone so far away from home. There were people along the way that I met, and things that happened to me during that trip that I will never forget as long as I live. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of my strongest memories which has stuck with me over the years was that of being chased around in the warm summer rain in the fading hours of daylight by a Mississippi State trooper for no apparent reason other than that I was a young kid from Chicago with long hair! I had pulled over to the side of the road to catch some shut eye so I was asleep in the back of my bus when a Mississippi police officer rapped sharply on my window and ordered me to get out of the vehicle. I was on my way to Birmingham or Jackson as I recall. He put me through one of the most unusual encounters with the law that I have ever experienced in my life, up until recently that is. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me see your license, registration, and proof of insurance,\u201d<\/i> he demanded sharply\u2026 It all started out pretty normal enough just like my most recent encounter with the law in the little town of Coburg, Oregon did. After he made sure that there were no outstanding warrants for my arrest, he ordered me to continue standing outside in the rain while he made a beeline for the rear of his patrol car.. What I am about to tell you next actually did happen. It is 100% true. \u00a0From out of the trunk of his patrol car the officer pulled a large towel that had been rather tightly wound and he came back swinging that wet towel while telling me that I better start running for my life.. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then he proceeded to chase me back and forth around the bus snapping the wet towel as he ran after me up and down the road and into the woods that lined the side of the highway.\u00a0 When he chased me as far as he wanted to, and he was well satisfied with himself he got back into his patrol car and drove away much to my relief. His sudden departure was just as unexpected as his previous departure from professional conduct was to my amazement. \u00a0\u00a0Eventually I returned to my van, and drove as far away from there and as fast away from there as I could. But I will never forget this experience of being chased around in the fading light of day by a police officer who was literally intent on beating me with a wet towel. The message was clear however\u2026 I was not welcome there! And this brings me to the real reason that I wrote this story, The Worst Little Town in America<\/span>. I have never personally experienced such a lack of professionalism by a sworn officer of the law except for three or four other occasions in my life which I wont fully go into\u2026 The latest of these incidents however occurred recently in the little town of Coburg Oregon, a place that I call the worst little town in America.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coburg is nestled in the mid-Willamette Valley. The primary product of the Willamette Valley is grass seed, not marijuana but Oregon rye. Many of the area\u2019s residents are farmers\u2026 the salt of the earth\u2026 But it looks to me like Coburg is diligently trying to earn the title of the worst little town in America. Here is why, but first a little background might be helpful. For the past three years I have been building my dream home in the country. Currently it is without running water. As a result sometimes I have to take a shower before I go home at night. Usually I do that at my health club, but\u00a0\u00a0when I don\u2019t make it to the health club on time I have been resorting to a certain Truck n\u2019 Travel along Interstate 5 in the little town of Coburg where I have been using their\u00a0 showers once or twice a week for about a year now\u2026 A shower there costs twelve dollars believe it or not and I have been paying regularly one or two times a week for almost a year as I continue to make slow but steady progress on my house. Over the months I have gotten to know some of the truckers who\u00a0stop\u00a0and fuel up at\u00a0the\u00a0Truck n’ Travel\u00a0on a daily basis and I have become\u00a0friends with some of them \u2026 Each time they fuel up, in return for spending\u00a0$800 on fuel they receive a free shower pass.\u00a0\u00a0Since they don\u2019t ever use their shower passes because they are local drivers who make it home every night, they were happy to give them to me. \u00a0That was the beginning of my problems with the Truck n\u2019 Travel and it was also the beginning of my problems with the little town of Coburg Oregon <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The owner of the Truck n\u2019 Travel didn\u2019t appear to be very enamored\u00a0over the idea of\u00a0any truckers giving me their free shower\u00a0passes which they received for fueling up there\u2026 Neither did the National Truck n\u2019 Travel headquarters offer me any assistance at all when I\u00a0complained to\u00a0them that their local franchise was making me feel unwelcome there \u2026\u00a0\u00a0T<\/strong>hey totally supported their franchise owner\u2019s right to make whatever\u00a0decision he wanted to\u00a0make\u00a0regarding\u00a0 the shower policy.. This particular Truck n\u2019 Travel is located at 32910 E. Pearl Street in the little town of Coburg Oregon. Coburg is a small bedroom community located just north of Eugene Oregon along Interstate 5. It has a population of about 900 people. It is approximately one square mile from side to side and top to bottom. It has one traffic light or I should say or that it had only one traffic light for as long as anyone could remember until recently.\u00a0Now it has two traffic lights. It just installed a new one right near the freeway\u2026 So now\u00a0the town\u00a0has two traffic lights which is the same as the number of police cars that it has.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This small town police department has been warned\u00a0before by the Oregon\u00a0Legislature\u00a0not to\u00a0use its police department to write\u00a0traffic tickets along\u00a0Interstate 5 just to generate money for the town coffers. In the past as much as 80% of the town\u2019s revenue has been derived by writing these questionable traffic tickets along Interstate 5. Today the Coburg Police Department is still generating about 40% of the town\u2019s revenue through its municipal traffic court. The normal amount of a city\u2019s budget that is derived from writing traffic tickets is usually about 4%.<\/strong> What they call traffic court in Coburg \u00a0is actually a freshly painted outbuilding in the middle of town where judicial services are contracted out to a hired Judge who\u00a0comes down once a month and sets up his sham court right in the center of town just like an old English rottenborough. The city council and the mayor pay this\u00a0professional legal\u00a0hit man to set up his sham court and then pronounce everybody guilty who has been issued a traffic ticket in the last month. After\u00a0invariably finding them\u00a0guilty of whatever offense they are accused of,\u00a0\u00a0the judge \u00a0orders them to pay their fine to the town of Coburg in a timely manner\u2026 I sat through the entire court docket on the day that my case for driving without the required lighting was supposed to be \u201cadjudicated.\u201d To put it rather politely adjudicated is quite a little stretch of the word.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apparently the town of Coburg is misusing its authority once again.. They are acting like they are above the law.. They must think that the law exists only so they can raise money to fund the town\u2019s grandiose wastewater treatment facility just north of town.\u00a0\u00a0Their police department is being misused once again, to troll around late at night or in the wee hours of the morning looking for lucrative prey and a potential new source of\u00a0revenue to fund the sewer plant. How do I know this.. I know it because I got stopped late one night on my way home.\u00a0 Then they harassed me and cited me for an equipment violation for failing to have an operating headlamp on my truck after\u00a0it had\u00a0hit a deer.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coburg is the little town that dreams of being a big city. That is why they started building a large wastewater treatment facility just north of town even though the town\u2019s residents are about evenly split over the issue of development. They have torn up the streets and left them in shambles, and now they have essentially run out of money to finish the project. Many residents of Coburg would prefer that their little town of Coburg remain pretty much the way that it was. But Mayor Jay Pudewell says that the wastewater treatment facility will be built (regardless of what citizens think<\/i>). I like a strong mayor who knows how to take charge don\u2019t you?\u2026 He reminds me a little of Benito Mussolini who took control and assured Italian voters that all of the trains in Rome would run on time. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the town\u2019s cash cruiser stopped me for having the smashed fender and the broken headlamp, their police officer who was out driving for dollars\u00a0late at night didn\u2019t even bother to look at the damage to the front of my truck. He just wrote me a ticket for the inoperative headlamp in spite of my protestations that I hit a deer,\u00a0 the parts were on order, and my truck was scheduled to be repaired by the body shop next week\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/em>After the citation was issued I still figured that when I went to court with the pictures showing the evidence of the collision, plus a copy of the repair order showing that my truck had been fixed, that the ticket would be dismissed. I live 40 miles out of town.. The nearest grocery store is 40 miles away. This isn\u2019t rocket science. Driving for me is a necessity. I need to use my truck everyday for the purpose of working. This ticket shouldn\u2019t have been written, and it would have been dismissed in almost every other court in the land, but not in the worst little town in America, Coburg Oregon!<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The judge pronounced me guilty and told me to pay the clerk. \u201cHow much time do you need to pay your fine,\u201d<\/i> he asked\u2026 I said a lot because I AM NOT GOING TO PAY IT! \u00a0\u201cFine\u201d<\/i> he said, \u201cThen you can appeal it\u201d\u2026<\/i> That will cost you even more as I found out later\u2026 \u201cI am not paying that either\u201d<\/i> I told the mayor in a later phone conversation. \u201cWhat do you want me to do,\u201d<\/i> he asked. \u201cYou don\u2019t punish somebody for hitting a deer do you, especially in Oregon where deer are everywhere?\u201d<\/i> \u00a0The purpose of writing traffic citations is to modify improper driver behavior patterns. Just what improper behavior of mine is going to \u201cimproved\u201d by writing a ticket citation and fining me 160 dollars for basically hitting a deer? That ticket shouldn\u2019t have ever been written in the first place! \u00a0Who writes you a traffic ticket for hitting a deer, or kicks you in the butt when you are down on the ground? \u00a0Well I guess we know the answer to that question now don\u2019t we\u2026 The little town of Coburg, which doesn\u2019t have enough money to finish building its wastewater treatment plant!\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u00a0I have known for quite some time that the law is a business like\u00a0no other.\u00a0 But writing traffic tickets amounting to 80% of a town\u2019s annual budget, or even 40% of its budget, and \u00a0misusing its Court, or instructing its sworn police officers to write\u00a0 bogus traffic tickets just in order to help\u00a0pay for\u00a0its municipal wastewater treatment plant is a whole different crock of shit, literally!<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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This small town police department has been warned before by the Oregon Legislature not to use its police department to write traffic tickets along Interstate 5 just to generate money for the town coffers. In the past as much as 80% of the town\u2019s revenue has been derived by writing these questionable traffic tickets along Interstate 5. Today the Coburg Police Department is still generating about 40% of the town\u2019s revenue through its municipal traffic court…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,20,6],"tags":[225,224,226,227,223,228,229],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1268,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}