Man Loses Zoning Case and Immediately Pulls Out Gun and Shoots Himself in the Head
I live in Austin Texas. And I thought our city council meetings were pretty intense. I have seen 150 people jam back into the council chamber over zoning issues. Tempers have sometimes flared. But something unfortunate happened in Tennessee yesterday which makes Austin pale in comparison.
Ronald Ward was arguing for a zoning issue. After he was denied he walked over to the city council members and shot himself in the head. Apparently before the fatal gunshot he was heard to say "Y'all have put me under. ... I'm out of here".
What led to such a violent zoning related death? Apparently Ronald Ward was hoping to get a zoning change on his property which would increase the value of his property. This would have allowed him to get cash out on a refinance on his property, allowing him to pay off debt he had from expanding his shop.
Ronald was well liked in the community. His business which relied on soldiers from Fort Campbell suffered after the soldiers were deployed in Iraq. His business was featured on local news a few times when they discussed the economic hard times on businesses that had previously catered to soldiers now in Iraq.
The council has plans to discontinue meetings in the room where the incident occurred.
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Copyright 2005-2007
Comments
The McMansion Ordinance in Austin has almost made my head explode without a gun. It is too restrictive and has prevented me from building a reasonably sized home on a reasonably sized lot. I am sure the central Austin values have also been affected by the ordinance. You can't remodel or build as much and it will definitely affect values negatively.
Posted by: centralaustinurbanist | October 7, 2007 12:45 PM
It would be interesting to learn why the didn't approve the change. If by some slim chance it was just another power trip...then maybe this tragedy will be a lesson learned by all city councils. What a shame for all who were involved.
Posted by: Shannon Lefevre | October 8, 2007 10:05 PM
They're politicians. Even if they can't admit it publicly, they secretly loved zoning the guy to death.
Posted by: Steve Massey | February 2, 2008 07:58 PM