Cape Charles Town Council is held a special meeting on April 16 to review an ordinance that would make it a Class 3 misdemeanor to operate short-term rentals in Cape Charles for as long as the Governor’s executive orders remain in effect.
Following the adoption of a declaration of local emergency by the Town Council on March 30; the Mayor issued a formal request for all short-term rental operations to cease until state guidance eased restrictions on travel.
The Mirror received this email message from a reader: Someone, I won’t say her name but she is renting her house to people from NY. They don’t even park in front of the house they park on Nectarine. They are shopping in food lion. Why does everyone else have to go by the rules but she think she doesn’t. Well, she doesn’t live in town. Stop bringing people here! Are our lives of no matter to you for money. And I maybe could understand if you needed the money but you are one that doesn’t but risking Cape Charles citizens lives!
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If someone were to actually dare to stand up on their hind legs to question this “order” of Governor Northam in a court of law, which they can’t because there are no operating courts, would he be able to defend it as a valid and lawful and Constitutional exercise of his authority, jurisdiction and discretion as a governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as opposed to an “Andy Cuomo wannabee” tyrant dictator of the Commonwealth?
For example, in his EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER FIFTY-FIVE (2020) TEMPORARY STAY AT HOME ORDER DUE TO NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19), governor Northam states and declares thusly, to wit:
To reinforce the Commonwealth’s response to COVID-19 and in furtherance of Executive Orders 51 (March 12, 2020) and 53 (March 23, 2020) and by virtue of the authority vested in me by Article V, Section 7 of the Constitution of Virginia, by § 44-146.17 of the Code of Virginia, I order the following:
1. All individuals in Virginia shall remain at their place of residence, except as provided below by this Order and Executive Order 53.
end quotes
But what authority is vested in Ralph Northam by Article V, Section 7 of the Constitution of Virginia?
Let’s take a look:
Article V. Executive
Section 7. Executive and administrative powers
The Governor shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
The Governor shall be commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Commonwealth and shall have power to embody such forces to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, and enforce the execution of the laws.
end quotes
When that says “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” that word “shall” means the governor has no discretion to do otherwise, and the “laws” include the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, itself.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth came into being as a result of a rebellion against a tyrant, perhaps insane king in England and his royal governors, the last of whom in the Commonwealth, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of the British Colony of Virginia, on November 7, 1775, signed Dunmore’s Proclamation, declaring martial law in Virginia.
Reviewing the document, one finds no provision for Ralph Northam, a Democrat, to be another royal governor of Virginia.
Does he know that?
Probably not.
But what about Ralph Northam being the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Commonwealth, its Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force and Coast Guard, and power to embody such forces to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, and enforce the execution of the laws?
Is COVID an invasion?
Is there actually an insurrection going on in Virginia?
And what about enforcing the execution of laws?
In his IMPERIAL DECREE above in emulation of EL COMMANDANTE Cuomo in New York, governor Northam cites § 44-146.17 of the Code of Virginia, where Title 44 is entitled Military and Emergency Laws and Chapter 3.2, where § 44-146.17 is found, is entitled Emergency Services and Disaster Law as his authority to order that ALL individuals in Virginia shall remain at their place of residence.
But does that law actually give him such power, or is he pulling that from straight out of his *** on the assumption that everyone in Virginia is too damn stupid to know the difference?
§ 44-146.17. Powers and duties of Governor, states:
The Governor shall be Director of Emergency Management.
He shall take such action from time to time as is necessary for the adequate promotion and coordination of state and local emergency services activities relating to the safety and welfare of the Commonwealth in time of disasters.
end quotes
But seriously, people, is COVID really a disaster pursuant to that section of law?
Or is that a reach (unlawful and unconstitutional power grab) on the part of Ralph Northam?
For that answer, let us go to § 44-146.14 of Chapter 3.2 of Title 44 of the Code of Virginia where we find thusly stated, to wit:
§ 44-146.14 Findings of General Assembly.
(a) Because of the ever present possibility of the occurrence of disasters of unprecedented size and destructiveness resulting from enemy attack, sabotage or other hostile action, resource shortage, or from fire, flood, earthquake, or other natural causes, and in order to insure that preparations of the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions will be adequate to deal with such emergencies, and generally to provide for the common defense and to protect the public peace, health, and safety, and to preserve the lives and property and economic well-being of the people of the Commonwealth, it is hereby found and declared to be necessary and to be the purpose of this chapter:
(1) To create a State Department of Emergency Management, and to authorize the creation of local organizations for emergency management in the political subdivisions of the Commonwealth;
(2) To confer upon the Governor and upon the executive heads or governing bodies of the political subdivisions of the Commonwealth emergency powers provided herein; and
(3) To provide for rendering of mutual aid among the political subdivisions of the Commonwealth and with other states and to cooperate with the federal government with respect to the carrying out of emergency service functions.
(b) It is further declared to be the purpose of this chapter and the policy of the Commonwealth that all emergency service functions of the Commonwealth be coordinated to the maximum extent possible with the comparable functions of the federal government, other states, and private agencies of every type, and that the Governor shall be empowered to provide for enforcement by the Commonwealth of national emergency services programs, to the end that the most effective preparation and use may be made of the nation’s resources and facilities for dealing with any disaster that may occur.
end quotes
First of all, COVID is a COMMUNICABLE DISEASE, not a disaster, so COVID is covered by the public health section of the Code of Virginia, which is nowhere cited in Northam’s IMPERIAL DECREE above, so in invoking the disaster law, Northam seems to have grounded his IMPERIAL DECREE on a platform of moonbeams, star dust and cobwebs to hold it together.
But let us make our own assumption in here that Northam considers COVID to be an unprecedented disaster in the history of Virginia because it made Chris Cuomo, Andy Cuomo’s brother who is an essential worker as a Democrat propagandist on BNN, sick to the point of where Ralph Northam thought he was going to die, and thus rob the Democrats of an essential propagandist going minto a presidential election in November, is locking down the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, because Ralph Northam considers COVID to be a disaster of unprecedented size and destructiveness, really an adequate measure to deal with COVID, assuming you could even call COVID a disaster, at all, which is a stretch given that most people will suffer mild symptoms from it, so as to provide for the common defense and to protect the public peace, health, and safety, and to preserve the lives and property and economic well-being of the people of the Commonwealth?
Is destroying the economic well-being of the people of the Commonwealth truly the best and only way of protecting the public peace, health, and safety, and preserving the lives and property of the people of the Commonwealth along with their economic well-being?
And existential question for our times!
And now we pause for station identification, and after a word from our sponsors, our regularly scheduled programming shall resume uninterrupted by further thinking about existential questions.
Is “short term” defined as less than 30 days?
That is my understanding since LT is defined as =/> 30 days. My question to the town is how will this be enforced?
Let me get this straight. New York State has 237,770 cases of the Chinese Flu. Some people from New York thought nothing of renting a room or two in Virginia? They thought nothing of driving through other infected states or passing microbes to others along the way. Then we have someone whose greed made them advertise and rent the rooms to selfish people.
WOW! Ya’ll better get some tar and feathers…Political Correctness has caused you to loose control of your home.
China Lied, People Died, and Democrats Hide
The illness is COVID-19 .
No, it is the Chines Flu. You will get no political correctness here.
During my daily walks there sure are a lot of cars and people at the colorful Oyster Farm villas for a “ban,” on rentals : )
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/travel-from-new-york-city-seeded-wave-of-us-outbreaks/ar-BB13J7Yx