Those of you that are familiar with me know I’ve been dedicating the majority of my time on a local City Council race here in Fort Collins. This is why I haven’t posted anything in almost a month. The race in District 5 in Fort Collins is a race for the very soul of our city. There is a man on our city council that believes certain types of people don’t belong in some neighborhoods (read his). The injustices that have been perpetrated by a local city ordinance here are profound. The suspension of personal freedom and liberty should give pause to all but the most liberal elitists.

For several years now, the Fort Collins City Council has singled out primarily students in order to keep them from living in certain areas of the city. This has been done via a city ordinance called the Three Unrelated, or U+2. Three Unrelated discriminates against students, lower-income citizens, and people who simply have a different definition of the word family. Those of us that oppose the law believe that you can’t tell whether or not someone’s going to be a good neighbor simply because of their socioeconomic group. The law states that no more than three unrelated people can live in a single residence.

The violations of individual liberty as a result of U+2 are astounding. To begin with, rents have gone up, yet homeowners that have investment rentals gain less income than they could. Students and lower-income citizens have fewer choices about where to live. More seriously, renters have lost their homes. This includes a specific incident of a city worker visiting someone’s home to inspect their sleeping arrangements. This was done without a warrant, and when appealed in court, the local city magistrate upheld the search of the home without a warrant as legal. This non-traditional family, which included children, were evicted from their home for the simple reason that they weren’t related.

Kelly Ohlson, former Mayor and current City Councilman from District 5 was the primary driving force behind U+2. During the City Council meeting, Ohlsen stated the following several times in different ways,

It’s their mere presence that’s the problem…

This was of course, in reference to the students at Colorado State University. It is very clear from the video below that Kelly Ohlson simply doesn’t want college students to live in some parts of the city. If your first thought when you read that is that they shouldn’t be on the wrong side of the tracks, then you’re beginning to understand what’s in the mind of Kelly Ohlson. Now, for the video:

Andrew Boucher is running to evict Kelly Ohlsen from the Fort Collins City Council in District 5. Andrew has committed to working to repeal the Unrelated Three law in Fort Collins. Boucher not only recognizes that we should be welcoming these students to our city, but we should also be encouraging them to stay. To do that, he realizes that Fort Collins will have to change its anti-business ways which are also led primarily by Kelly Ohlsen. To encourage students to stay, we need to invite businesses to come to our city and create good quality jobs, instead of watching them go to the surrounding cities.

I encourage you to support Andrew, and for those of you in Fort Collins District 5, please mail in your ballot right away. You should have already received it in the mail. Every vote will count in this election. We have the opportunity to show not only our wonderful city, but the rest of Larimer County, Colorado, and our nation that we stand for Liberty and Freedom.

A huge thanks to Blaine Gallup, who in addition to creating the video also writes at The Right Candor and has created a local issues blog called The Fort Collins Advocate.

Night Twister