The second is the town took on a massive loan to buy all the land it needed, it will now default. The state of WI backed the town in the loan and will now have to pay out for this nonsense.
Not that it makes it less terrible but backhanded stuff like this is not uncommon at all. If you run a business in my state you basically give up your right to stand up to the state/local government about anything (because they will use its power of discretionary enforcement to destroy your business).
If you're in the right you can win the head on fight (well, win it 10yr later in court, if that counts) but the government will always out flank you if they want something done but you are in their way. Sucks but it's reality.
And it might be more: the number of [Voted For Something Else] + [Didn't Vote] + [Not Eligible To Vote] is probably far greater than 49% of all residents.
It is, but for many of them they really should be excluded. How exactly is a 2-year-old going to make an informed vote, after all? How is an infant going to even fill out the ballot?
I would argue, however, that prisoners should be able to vote.
If you have so many prisoners in your society that it's substantially affecting the outcome of an election, then your society has a real problem, and it's not the prisoners.
Wtf? They could have just used eminent domain. Probably wouldn't have had to pay as much too.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/eminent-domain-can-we-defin...