Old Fashioned Muckraking Eats Modern Law

Letter to Ephesians: A “neighborly” old lady once got away with fleecing GOAT lawyer Abe Lincoln’s hometown. True story. But is Missou grandma’s cooking burritos for 300 neighbors now clipping concerned health bureaucrats whom her mouthpiece says have “gone amuck”?

Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to the generous grandma & her lawyer who don’t seem above hyperbole in pleading their case. Kathy Kite of Harrisburg told Fox News she was “frightened” by a recent letter from county health officials that supposedly threatened her with fines & jail if she didn’t spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars on a commercial kitchen;” and AFTER getting a special permit to run her “free … morning tradition” that brings her “tiny community together.” It all started circa May & after the local breakfast joint closed. The county says its form letter was triggered by a complaint of a customer, er, neighbor, getting sick after a meal; no jailing was threatened & state food safety laws obviously require a permit for regular & large feedings, especially one that had “open” & welcoming yard signs, a tip jar & advertised on social media. County officials said there’s no need for Kite’s legal rep to file a lawsuit HE is threatening since “We regularly work together with individuals & businesses who want to provide free food to the community."

It reminds me of when I was consigliere for Springfield, Illinois’ Mayor Michael Houston. The mayor was set to break ground on what America now enjoys as the “Lincoln Sites” funded by federal block grant money. After having generously settled nearly 200 lawsuits of residents blocking the project, the compromising Mayor got a call from an old lady’s lawyer threatening to file another suit, even though she had cashed that settlement money like everyone else. While sitting on her porch in a rocking chair, she had called the local paper that now asked why the City was being unkind to an old lady. Since holding up the groundbreaking would cost the City $100K per day, Mayor Houston wisely agreed to a tip, er, he cut a neighborly additional check for me to deliver.

Davd Soul