JOEY G. DAUBEN
The Ellis County Press
BOYCE – C.J. Gorn lives off of FM 879 outside of Palmer and the unincorporated area of Boyce.
He’s an unemployed junk collector who sells items at auctions, so he thought it was a bit strange when an out-of-state Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) worker visited his property several months ago.
Gorn, who lives with his wife in the farm-rich area between Ennis and Waxahachie north of Highway 287, spotted the worker - who he describes as someone as a white male in his late 20s having Montana license plates on his Jeep Renegade and the clipboard with the ACORN decal affixed to it.
"When I saw that [decal], I told him you’re trespassing, and in Texas, I can shoot you," Gorn said, who was also wearing a firearm at the time he saw the ACORN worker.
"He asked me if I was going to shoot him, and I said in Texas, what he’s doing is trespassing."
Gorn didn’t shoot the worker, but he wondered how our county’s elected officials and law enforcement authorities could stop the group from carrying out whatever work the U.S. Census Bureau or other federally funded agencies contract with ACORN to do.
"Who told them they could [come here?]," Gorn asked rhetorically.
At least in the city of Palmer, located just a few short miles from Gorns property, there are standards in place for dealing with groups like ACORN.
"I would like to think that federally subsidized groups would notify our city if they planned to execute their agendas inside our city," said Palmer Police Chief John Zaidle, whose dealings with a federal agency FEMA made international news over the summer.
"Sounds like something that would be brought to the city council to explain goals and intentions. As far as private property issues, that would be between the land owner and the group in question.
"This is my opinion on your question. The organization in question may have policies and procedures they should follow, they would have to answer that. Hope this helps."
The city of Palmer finally turned over FEMA documents to Brandy L. Owen after a six-month wait after she requested what the city had in the form of mass quarantines of the population.
A thick binder of documents had sections of the "population relocation" policies Owen asked for missing, which sparked this newspapers story being picked up by Infowars.com and syndicated internationally.
No word yet from what county elected officials plan to do about this latest jaunt by the federal government and their agents into this county, but with all the cash that flows into this 952-square mile county, whod rock that boat?
