Your thoughts on this code?

[pgfhgs]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to get some thoughts on how this ordinance is worded? My thought is you can pick surface coins after a festival with no legal problems........I think? Mostly because the use of comma's are present except where it counts! I don't mind pushing the envelope

Sec. 32-3 TURF PROTECTION ON PUBLIC PROPERTY

Except as authorized by the director of parks, recreation and forestry, no person shall dig into the turf of any village-owned park or recreational property for any purpose whatsoever or remove any trees or flowers, including the use of metal detectors and digging for buried objects on village parks or recreational property.

 

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[G.I.B.]

I'd say they hate our hobby. Pretty cut and dried. No ambiguity there, whatsoever.

Doesn't sound like a very friendly place.

 

[cudamark]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to get some thoughts on how this ordinance is worded? My thought is you can pick surface coins after a festival with no legal problems........I think? Mostly because the use of comma's are present except where it counts! I don't mind pushing the envelope

Sec. 32-3 TURF PROTECTION ON PUBLIC PROPERTY

Except as authorized by the director of parks, recreation and forestry, no person shall dig into the turf of any village-owned park or recreational property for any purpose whatsoever or remove any trees or flowers, including the use of metal detectors and digging for buried objects on village parks or recreational property.

I agree with you. If you don't dig, you should be good. Just don't bring any digging tools with you or you might have a tough defense argument!

 

[NHBandit]

Looks pretty cut & dried to me. Says you can't do it. Of course there's a guy named Tom here who will be along in a minute & tell you to do it anyway... The problem with that is thumbing your nose at the law knowing up front that it's not allowed will only draw unwanted attention to our hobby which may result in even more places being off limits. Just my 2 cents worth.. Quote "Except as authorized by the director of parks, recreation and forestry".. Have you tried calling & asking ? It may be perfectly fine but they want you to ask first ? Every state, city, county, etc. is different. Some places allow it by permit. Some permits are free and some require a small fee. Asking a bunch of Yahoos on a treasure site (myself included) what the law is for Green Bay WI isn't the way to get a straight no BS answer. PS... Telling the judge that "Joe Blow" on Treasurenet said it was ok won't get your fine reduced or your equipment returned to you.

 

[Clay Diggins]

"Except as authorized by the director of parks, recreation and forestry"..

Have you tried calling & asking ? It may be perfectly fine but they want you to ask first ?

Bingo!

Right there in black and white.

The law is clear. You need to get permission before you can metal detect or dig. Make your best pitch with the director of parks, recreation and forestry. You might be surprised.

 

[cudamark]

Looks to me like the intent of the law was to outlaw digging and/or removing flora. Even the heading under that section is titled "Turf Protection". Assuming there is no other section banning walking on the grass, I don't see prohibition on just detecting surface targets. The mention of metal detectors was linked with "digging for buried objects", not singled out by itself specifically. They would have used the word "or" instead of "and" if that were the case.

 

[pgfhgs]

Looks pretty cut & dried to me. Says you can't do it. Of course there's a guy named Tom here who will be along in a minute & tell you to do it anyway... The problem with that is thumbing your nose at the law knowing up front that it's not allowed will only draw unwanted attention to our hobby which may result in even more places being off limits. Just my 2 cents worth.. Quote "Except as authorized by the director of parks, recreation and forestry".. Have you tried calling & asking ? It may be perfectly fine but they want you to ask first ? Every state, city, county, etc. is different. Some places allow it by permit. Some permits are free and some require a small fee. Asking a bunch of Yahoos on a treasure site (myself included) what the law is for Green Bay WI isn't the way to get a straight no BS answer. PS... Telling the judge that "Joe Blow" on Treasurenet said it was ok won't get your fine reduced or your equipment returned to you.

I know Green Bays law this isn't a GB park but it is where they have Cheese fest, yep cheese fest no shiiit!!!! I have asked and they said no. here is the thing, the Supreme Court just said, what the intent was is most important and this code----ordinance is for turf protection, needless to say I found a buck and a half or so in an hour...........

 

[pgfhgs]

Looks to me like the intent of the law was to outlaw digging and/or removing flora. Even the heading under that section is titled "Turf Protection". Assuming there is no other section banning walking on the grass, I don't see prohibition on just detecting surface targets. The mention of metal detectors was linked with "digging for buried objects", not singled out by itself specifically. They would have used the word "or" instead of "and" if that were the case.

my thoughts exactly......

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I would ordinarily say that verbage about "dig", "alter" and "deface" don't necessarily apply to md'ing. Because you'll leave no trace. And thus technically have not alterED, defaceED, or dUg anything. However: your particular statute specifically mentions md'ing. Doh! So I'm afraid that won't work.

I wonder what precipitated your city's genius idea to have something so specific in there ?

 

[Clay Diggins]

Nothing particularly mean about this town. This is municipal code for Wisconsin. It's probably been adopted by every incorporated town and Village in Wisconsin. If it were just local to the town it would be in their Ordinances - not in the adopted municipal code.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Nothing particularly mean about this town. This is municipal code for Wisconsin. It's probably been adopted by every incorporated town and Village in Wisconsin. If it were just local to the town it would be in their Ordinances - not in the adopted municipal code.

Clay diggins, it is common for cities to simply borrow /adopt wording from other municipalities, when it comes time to make a city charter, laws, codes, etc..... Ie.: a "one-size-fits-all" sort of exercise, where other cities, long ago, did the heavy-lifting of spelling out all sorts of minutias. So then when newer cities come along, they just "copy & paste", so-to-speak. Doh! Is this what you're referring to ?

If so, then I have never heard of specific mention of md'ers being in that line of reasoning. Yes of course things like "alter", "vandalize", "deface", "remove", "take", etc.... Because all those things cover just general mayhem, haha. But when it comes to something that specifically said "metal detectors", I have not heard of that simply being copied from some other city. Reason is: Since detectors are a relatively new phenomenon (1960s, in-so-far as turf goes), then it stands to reason that not many cities came into being in the 1960s, to-the-present.

 

[Clay Diggins]

I've never heard of a municipality that was willing to give away their code. Being corporations municipalities consider their code as part of their asset/liability base. Municipalities don't generally give anything away without holding a vote first. Usually their corporate charter prohibits giving freebies to those outside the tax district.

Most Municipal Codes are "rented" from one of the big code organizations. It's really expensive to hire a municipal lawyer to write, research and update codes so a basic set of codes are rented and then changes are made locally. Often the State offers part of the code as an incentive to incorporate the town, village city etc. Then a code writer like Municode is hired on an annual basis to keep any recent changes updated and "codified".

Even larger cities often use outside services to generate and keep their code. In Wisconsin the code rented commonly has Sec 32-3 Turf Protection included. A quick look around and I see Municode has provided the same code to Belleville, Manawa and Little Chute, WI. There are probably a lot more.

More than likely the reason MDers are specifically prohibited is due to a past liability case or State laws on municipal owned property. Liability is a big issue for incorporated towns and cities so they are glad to have a codifier who has already built a code package that covers their liability issues.

The upshot here is that most likely your town hasn't passed the code specifically to stop MDing but they did buy that package. They aren't personally against metal detecting but they did adopt the code package that has that prohibition.

IF you can convince your city council to vote a change in the code, and pay the lawyers and codewriters to change the code, you can actually participate in the process of self governance. If you do the heavy lifting of hiring a municipal lawyer to investigate the potential liability to your city, should they change their code, your city council will be a lot more likely to vote in your favor. If you want them to do that work themselves things can move very slowly. You might try it, participation in local government is a lot more effective than trying to word twist "no person shall dig" into "it's really OK to dig". In particular Judges really hate that weasel word approach to reinterpreting clearly written laws like "no person shall dig".

Here's a little wider look at the business of renting codes.
Building Codes - You didn't really think your local city council actually wrote the building codes, this is just one of the corporations who do write and rent those building/construction codes.

I hope that helps.

 

[G.I.B.]

'for any purpose whatsoever'... so on and so forth.

You can play guess the comma, and, or, should have said, can't prove, might mean...

But 'for any purpose whatsoever' kind of makes the intent clear.

Go steal a car- according to the way the law is written, theft is defined as an intent to temporarily or permanently deprive the owner of...

Just tell the cops you didn't intend to deprive anybody of anything.

 

[pgfhgs]

Judges really hate that weasel word approach to reinterpreting clearly written laws like ?? really did you just see the supreme courts rulings? Again all of this is caught up on digging, as I said Picking fresh coins off the surface is what is in question. Again this is under turf protection and how does picking up a coin hurt the surface, which is exactly why they need a comma.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Judges really hate that weasel word approach to reinterpreting clearly written laws like ?? really did you just see the supreme courts rulings? Again all of this is caught up on digging, as I said Picking fresh coins off the surface is what is in question. Again this is under turf protection and how does picking up a coin hurt the surface, which is exactly why they need a comma.

I've read more Supreme Court rulings than you've had dinners with your family pgfhgs. Not sure what that has to do with the subject?

I don't see any prohibition on picking "fresh coins off the surface" as long as you don't do it by "including the use of metal detectors". Not sure why you would need a metal detector if you were "picking fresh coins off the surface"? In any case you asked for "Your thoughts on this code" and now you have them.

 

[Garrett424]

Looks really straight forward to me with ZERO wiggle room.
That sucks.

 

[pgfhgs]

I've read more Supreme Court rulings than you've had dinners with your family pgfhgs. Not sure what that has to do with the subject?

I don't see any prohibition on picking "fresh coins off the surface" as long as you don't do it by "including the use of metal detectors". Not sure why you would need a metal detector if you were "picking fresh coins off the surface"? In any case you asked for "Your thoughts on this code" and now you have them.

Mostly need the MD because of the long grass..........maybe its part of my religious rights I belong to the church of the 10 oz coin and our beliefs are to uncover every coin until we find our God of coins. Therefore on a public park they can't keep me from expressing my freedom of religion. As it is freedom of religion not from religion

 

[G.I.B.]

Good for you pgfhgs- don't take this quietly.

Grab your detectors and hit that park. Only by challenging their authority can you truly be free in your religious pursuits and exercising of freedoms.

They will get your detector when they pry it from your cold dead hands.

File a lawsuit, I'm sure the city has a cut grass ordinance, and if the grass is too long, you wouldn't need a detector to find that God coin lying on the surface.

Take this to the highest court you can and vindicate all of us as there are no other places left to hunt.

Take back your park!

Go get 'em!

 

[cudamark]

'for any purpose whatsoever'... so on and so forth.

You can play guess the comma, and, or, should have said, can't prove, might mean...

But 'for any purpose whatsoever' kind of makes the intent clear.

Go steal a car- according to the way the law is written, theft is defined as an intent to temporarily or permanently deprive the owner of...

Just tell the cops you didn't intend to deprive anybody of anything.

I still only see the "for any purpose whatsoever" having only to do with digging, not metal detecting. It looks to me that the mention of metal detecting was just used to invalidate "metal detecting" as a valid reason for the digging.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've never heard of a municipality that was willing to give away their code. Being corporations municipalities consider their code as part of their asset/liability base. Municipalities don't generally give anything away without holding a vote first. Usually their corporate charter prohibits giving freebies to those outside the tax district.

Most Municipal Codes are "rented" from one of the big code organizations. It's really expensive to hire a municipal lawyer to write, research and update codes so a basic set of codes are rented and then changes are made locally. Often the State offers part of the code as an incentive to incorporate the town, village city etc. Then a code writer like Municode is hired on an annual basis to keep any recent changes updated and "codified".

Even larger cities often use outside services to generate and keep their code. In Wisconsin the code rented commonly has Sec 32-3 Turf Protection included. A quick look around and I see Municode has provided the same code to Belleville, Manawa and Little Chute, WI. There are probably a lot more.

More than likely the reason MDers are specifically prohibited is due to a past liability case or State laws on municipal owned property. Liability is a big issue for incorporated towns and cities so they are glad to have a codifier who has already built a code package that covers their liability issues.

The upshot here is that most likely your town hasn't passed the code specifically to stop MDing but they did buy that package. They aren't personally against metal detecting but they did adopt the code package that has that prohibition.

IF you can convince your city council to vote a change in the code, and pay the lawyers and codewriters to change the code, you can actually participate in the process of self governance. If you do the heavy lifting of hiring a municipal lawyer to investigate the potential liability to your city, should they change their code, your city council will be a lot more likely to vote in your favor. If you want them to do that work themselves things can move very slowly. You might try it, participation in local government is a lot more effective than trying to word twist "no person shall dig" into "it's really OK to dig". In particular Judges really hate that weasel word approach to reinterpreting clearly written laws like "no person shall dig".

Here's a little wider look at the business of renting codes.
Building Codes - You didn't really think your local city council actually wrote the building codes, this is just one of the corporations who do write and rent those building/construction codes.

I hope that helps.

Very interesting clay-diggings. I didn't know there were companies/groups that created "continually updating" charters/laws/codes for municipalities. Like to "keep up with the latest legal trends", etc.... If what you're saying is true, and something like md'ing dis-allowance were included in minutia that gets adopted as nothing more than a "package" (in a ton of other boiler plate verbage), then I would agree with what you say here:

...... The upshot here is that most likely your town hasn't passed the code specifically to stop MDing but they did buy that package. They aren't personally against metal detecting but they did adopt the code package that has that prohibition......

In other words, while it may now be in the rules, yet odds are, no one locally has any particular beef against md'ing. And in fact, the average rank & file Joe probably isn't even aware it's there! If that's the case, then no, I would not feel the need to go "fight" against something like that. In that case, I'd go by the "does anyone really care?" test of things. Sort of like spitting on sidewalks laws: If no on really cares, then does anyone really fight such laws ? Of course not.