A note to the Belleville, Illinois city council

Dear Belleville City Council,

Is there anything on this planet -- any aspect of the lives of those who elected you -- that you people recognize as not in dire need of your gunpoint-enforced ministrations?

Never mind. I didn't think so.

Recommendations, short version: Extract crania from recta. Please. That's gotta hurt. It may not hurt you, but it's sure as hell hurting your city.

Recommendations, longer notes:

- Who gets to define "special needs child" for purposes of trick-or-treating? If they're trick-or-treating, they're not at school, so forget IEPs. Will Belleville be setting up a special board to determine whether or not each individual Little Johnny or Jenny is sufficiently cognitively differently abled to qualify?

- What idiot told you that the age of someone who might decide to knock on a neighbor's door and ask for candy on any given night, or the time at which he or she might elect to do so (provided it does not disturb the peace, which I bet you already have laws to address) is any of your business? And why did you believe that idiot?

- I have to surmise, at first glance, that that same idiot is the one who told you that whether or not people suspected of no crime might choose to wear masks is also your -- or "law enforcement's" -- business. I'm tempted to pop over to Belleville for Guy Fawkes Day to contest that proposition.

- There's a reason they're called "ex-convicts." It means they've served their sentences and that at present there's no probable cause to suspect they are involved in criminal acts -- because if there was probable cause, they'd be in jail awaiting arraignment, or out on bail under restrictions imposed on a case by case basis by a judge, right?

- Mayor Eckert: If you feel that you need to go the extra mile to protect the children, knock yourself out. Better yet, try going 6,600 miles -- your approach to governance seems better suited to Pyongyang than to Belleville.

- Since when did "scared" become a legitimate excuse for making up silly rules? If someone's five-year-old reports to the city council that he's scared of monsters under his bed, will you ... whoa, I'm going to stop right there before you have a chance to get all hopped up for a long ordinance-writing session.

I mean ... Jebus ... don't you people have anything better to do?