Updates and links follow this morning.
Here is the link to 2015AP1258 Golden Sands Dairy LLC v. Town of Saratoga.
The decision is five-to-two in favor of Wysocki Golden Sands factory farm.
This is a decision by Republican justices for Repulbican interests, against communities and families. The majority opinion was written by out-going Justice Michael J. Gableman who is retiring from the Court on July 31.
A naked act of results-aimed corruption in the judiciary, Gableman's decision upends the doctrine of vested property rights and towns' ability to protect families and the community.
After today's decision all a corporate interest has to do to manage destructive operations is conceal its aims in a Building Permit Rule application and include a vague reference to land.
Writes Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson joined by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in dissent:
Today, the majority expands the Building Permit Rule to create vested rights to particular uses of land so long as the land is 'specifically identified' in the building permit application.
This ill-advised expansion of the Building Permit Rule sacrifices the important public policies that the Building Permit Rule was designed to encourage, namely, 'predictability for land owners, purchasers, developers, municipalities, and the courts.'
The majority's expansion of the Building Permit Rule transforms what was once an easy-to-apply, bright-line rule into a rule requiring a case-by-case analysis of the applicant's specificity regarding both the description of the property included within the scope of the building permit application as well as the property's proposed use.
Tears, anxiety and a resolve to keep fighting describe the central Wisconsin communities' mood this morning.
One Saratoga resident reached by phone said she has slept only two hours in the last two days awaiting the Court decision and opinions.
Another resident, Criste Sullivan-Greening of Saratoga Concerned, writes in Facebook:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is a lawless institution and its Republican justices will find a way to rule in favor of Republican interests no matter the damage to Wisconsin communities, residents and the Court as a functioning branch of government.
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Below is a column written in 2017 on what the Wisconsin Supreme Court has become after Republicans and Republican justices worked to transform the Court into a tool for Republican interests.
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| Pictured is Wisconsin Supreme Court at the state capitol. Inside this iron door deliberation dies, and Republicans reign ascendant. |
A corrupt institution, Court justices, (five of the seven), elected to 10-year terms rely on $ millions from rightwing interests to keep the judges in their offices where Republican interests are jealously protected by the subsequent conduct of the justices.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is part of the Republican political machine, a turgid and pretentious cog spewing out reliably Republican case opinions for the benefit of Republican interests.
The justices' ethics are decided by Republican justices who rejected proposed rules that would mandate justices recuse from cases involving mega-donors to their campaigns, (Beck, Wisconsin State Journal). The law of the land in Wisconsin for the judiciary is: Fund my election, and I'll vote your way if you come before my court, (Mal Contends, The New Yorker).
So it was no surprise that the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to hear a case this month from central Wisconsin concerning the plans of a polluting, industrial agricultural outfit, the Wysocki Family of Companies, that proposes to build and operate a massive factory farm based in Saratoga, Wisconsin that would devastate parts of four counties. The case is Golden Sands Dairy LLC v. Town of Saratoga.
Residents in central Wisconsin are scared, so scared that nobody wants to go on the record and speak the truth about Wisconsin has become, specifically about what the Supreme Court has become. Who can blame these people?
Their communities, homes and small businesses are at stake in Golden Sands Dairy LLC v. Town of Saratoga and bad-mouthing the Supreme Court is considered risky.
As noted in these pages, it's an indication how corrupt Wisconsin government is under Republican rule that residents contacted in Wood and Adams counties believe Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will vote to hear the Golden Sands Wysocki petition, overturn the appellate decision and radically expand the vested rights of property owners to commit virtually any environmentally and economically destructive act, altering the capacity of local communities to protect their economic and environmental well-being and the safety of families against corporate actors.
Since 2011 Republicans have implemented an unprecedented statutory framework according property rights supremacy over any other competing rights, including public interest concerns.
No one is surprised the Wisconsin Supreme Court is corrupt. Certainly not James Wysocki, chief financial officer of the Big Ag outfit that will devastate central Wisconsin.
Reports Karen Madden in the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, quoting Wysocki:
'Golden Sands is gratified, but not surprised, that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has taken this case. It will provide the court the opportunity to clarify the law of vested rights in Wisconsin for all businesses that create jobs in the state and to rectify the unfair process by which the town of Saratoga sought to deprive Golden Sands of its vested rights.'
Numerous agricultural and real estate groups filed motions with the Supreme Court that supported the court taking the case. Those groups were concerned that other communities could change the rules after property is purchased, Wysocki said.
Under the new Republican theory of vested rights in Wisconsin, an owner of property becomes a extraordinary, super-interest for whom environmental, safety, zoning, and water-protection laws do not apply.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will vote in Wysocki's favor 5-2 sometime in 2018 in Golden Sands Dairy LLC v. Town of Saratoga. Don't be surprised.
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