Avery Surrounded

In watching the Netflix series “Making a Murderer,” I became intrigued with the idea that perhaps there was something about the land owned by the Avery family, causing all of their headaches. This evening I set about putting a little bit of a parcel map together and was surprised to discover that the land owned by the Avery family could definitely be a source of contention with his neighbors; the primary one of which appears to a sand and gravel company.

Indeed, Badgerland Aggregates, LLC owns nearly every parcel of land surrounding Avery’s Auto Salvage. It may sound a bit far-fetched, but there could very well be some sort of relationship there, and an effort to finish assembling the land in that area for their ongoing mining operations. After all, sand has become quite the commodity in the last bunch of years.

I drew the parcels in by hand, based on names data displayed through the Manitowoc County Advanced Access GIS Viewer. As GIS viewers go, it is terrible for this sort of an effort, and not user friendly at all. It took several hours to complete the effort, and in the end, I kicked myself for not having added the parcel number as well. It might be interesting to know the property values associated with these parcels, just in case there is some sort of discrepancy.

After going back and adding the parcel numbers to the table, I went through tax roll information on the Manitowoc County Property Tax Records Search web site. On the surface, it does appear that the land value for Avery family is over-assessed. In contrast, Badgerland Aggregates land assessed much lower, in spite of the fact that they are harvesting one particular commodity at a rather furious rate. I suppose that is not particularly shocking, but definitely of interest, and bears closer examination by someone more qualified.

I finally took to the web to discover more about Badgerland Aggregates, and quickly found out that I was not the only one that had this suspicion.

Coincidentally (as if this situation didn’t have enough already), Badgerland Aggregates has a very close relationship with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, one individual of which just happens to have been a mentor for the District Attorney.

Of course, this is all coincidence… if you believe in that many occurring around one particular person, but it is interesting, nonetheless. Feel free to have a look at the data assembled below.

Conscientious Stupidity

I heard a continuation of a very disappointing trend in the upcoming Presidential election on NPR this morning…

“I’m a woman. She’s a woman.”

Apparently, there are quite a few folks supporting Hillary Clinton for no other reason. I have heard this sort of commentary numerous times in interviews and other situations and it is most unsettling. The United States witnessed this this very same mentality during the election of Barack Obama in 2004. I remain genuinely surprised that nobody has noticed the sexist and racist undertones of these sort of comments, or everyone is too afraid to say anything.

Casting your vote in favor of someone should have nothing to do with the sex or race of an individual. It should have everything to do with their policies and beliefs. I cannot imagine casting my vote for someone solely based on physical traits. There is serious danger in this sort of thinking.