What Is Right?

 The truth is often tricky to grasp and detecting who is right and who is wrong can be trickier yet, at times.

Andy and Renee Crisman of rural Mora, Mn. have been discriminated against as unwelcome outsiders, denied access to a township-maintained gravel road to do business, run errands and have their children ride the school bus. I was all for the Crismans, and blamed the parochial rural natives that seemed to be ostracizing and persecuting them. It is not that simple. There has been a feud between the Crismans and the township for 5 years, and a Kanabec County judge recently ordered the township to maintain the road, but the township appealed to the state supreme court for relief.

It turns out the township has the constitutional authority to manage township roads, and if a judge and the state can step in and overrule the township, townships lose local power. And that is not advisable.

Add to that the legal precedent that townships all over Minnesota could be forced to build up and maintain minimum maintenance roads upon which no one lives, should the local person push the issue.

These are real issues that require a careful hearing.