Superior’s Appeal to a Blind Court, Starring Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine

Superior is back at it again, putting on another episode of As the City Burns Through Taxpayer Dollars.

This time the plot twist is an appeal in the Cuypers v. Taylor et al. case, and the vibe is simple: maybe, just maybe, a higher court will be as blind as the city attorney, as clueless as the police brass, and as allergic to accountability as City Hall on budget night.

Because when the facts get ugly, Superior doesn’t clean house. It files paperwork and hopes somebody up the chain forgot their reading glasses.

The Appeal: Same Old Song, New Courtroom

The defendants appealed after the court allowed part of the excessive force case to move forward, including claims tied to injuries to the plaintiff’s lower back and legs.

Translation:
“Your Honors, we respectfully request a fresh set of eyes, preferably ones that don’t work.”

That’s the whole game. Not truth. Not accountability. Not even dignity. Just legal hopscotch over the smoking crater where public trust used to be.

The filing reads like every bad government sequel: deny, delay, appeal, repeat. Like Friday the 13th, except the killer is municipal liability and it never stays dead.

Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine and the Kingdom of Thin Skin

Hovering over all of it, of course, is Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine, Superior’s patron saint of grudges, spin, and self-congratulations.

This is the kind of town where workers do the hard part, taxpayers pick up the tab, and the guys at the top act like they invented sidewalks.

Teachers show up, nurture kids, and carry the weight like pros. City workers keep things running. Then the administrative class strolls in like the cast of Dallas, takes credit, cashes checks, and calls it leadership.

And Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine? He always seems ready to polish a headline, nurse a grudge, or strike a pose while the city trips over its own shoelaces.

Blind Justice, Superior Style

The legal strategy here looks less like confidence and more like panic in a necktie.

A case involving allegations of excessive force should make any serious city stop and ask hard questions. Instead, Superior reaches for the usual emergency kit:

Deny it

Deflect from it

Appeal it

Invoice the public for it

That’s not justice. That’s municipal theater. Community theater, actually. The kind where everyone forgets their lines (right Nick Ledin), the props fall apart, and somehow the audience still gets charged twenty bucks.

Hoping the Appellate Court Misses the Obvious

The city’s apparent dream scenario is pretty obvious.

They want a court that squints at the injuries, shrugs at the facts, and decides this whole mess is just another paperwork inconvenience for Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine.

It’s the legal equivalent of a kid shoving a broken lamp behind the couch and insisting the problem has been solved.

Only here the lamp costs taxpayers real money, the trust keeps evaporating, and the people in charge keep acting shocked that residents are sick of the act.

Public Workers Do the Work. The Brass Does the Posing.

This is the oldest scam in local government.

Regular employees grind. Teachers teach. Public workers fix, haul, answer, build, and keep the wheels on the wagon.

Then management arrives like they’re Bon Jovi at the county fair and expects applause for not actively making things worse.

Meanwhile, Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine and the “Clown Council” never seem too busy to protect egos, guard turf, or act offended when anyone notices the city’s leadership pipeline runs straight from photo op to excuse factory.

Final Crossing Signal

Superior keeps hoping somebody in a robe will bless the same old City nonsense with a nicer font.

Maybe that works for a while. Maybe you can stall. Maybe you can appeal. Maybe you can hide behind jargon and act like the public is too dumb to notice.

But eventually even a blind system bumps into the truth.

And when it does, no amount of spin from Mayor Jim “Petty” Paine will make this look like leadership.

It’ll look exactly like what it is: a city administration begging not for justice, but for bad eyesight.

2.26.26 Cuypers_Ian_v_Taylor_Justin_et_al__wiwdce-24-00743__0060.0