Chicago Tribune | Glenview, resident fight on over village's legal-fee rule
Mystery Reader urges me to post this nasty neighborhood dispute, non-HOA related it seems, that has led to a lot of legal action. Plus, it's a Chicago-area story, so how can I ignore it?
[update: MR was not, in fact, urging me to post this, but merely pointing out the relevance of this story to the theme I was posting about: "larger transformation of
local government, from large general purpose governments to small special purpose districts." Which, MR argues, is closer to the mark than my occasional Monty Python references. Can't argue with that.]

Michael Zwick's problems in Glenview began when he complained that a fence his neighbor built in 1998 posed a security concern. She fired back that he plowed snow onto her property and let his weeds grow a foot high. Zwick eventually wound up with 186 municipal citations for putting his bright red recycling bins by the curb in the public parkway near her house. Now the dispute has escalated into a legal skirmish involving Glenview's declared right to recoup legal fees for taking Zwick to court. A Cook County circuit judge fined Zwick more than $9,000 in 2003 for violating the Glenview trash ordinance. But the court sided with him in dismissing Glenview's claim that he should pay the village's legal fees, which amounted to more than $30,000. The Illinois Appellate Court upheld that decision. Unwilling to give up, Glenview recently asked the Illinois Supreme Court to consider the issue.