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Email to THSC Association Regarding Defeat of Daytime Curfew

Dear Tim and Staff,

I just want to report to you today that we were successful last night at the Murphy City Council meeting for defeating the proposed daytime curfew.  Several home school families showed up to the meeting and were allowed to speak, I being one of them.  Two of the parents had already had one-on-one conversations with a couple of council members earlier yesterday afternoon.  They explained the situation and all of the problems associated with the proposed ordinance and with daytime curfews in general.  There were many compelling reasons, both legal and logical, to strike down the proposal.  It was clear even before we had our chance to speak at the meeting that the council was on our side.

In the end the council decided to postpone a final vote on the ordinance until next council meeting in two weeks.  The daytime provisions will be removed from the ordinance and it will contain only the nocturnal portions which have been in effect for the last 3 years.

I want to thank you for your support in this matter.  I was amazed that you called me and my wife after hours to offer advice and support.  You led me to the appropriate opinions and briefs on the THSC website relating to juvenile daytime curfews.  As I was severely pressed for time (we only found out about the proposal 4 ½ hours prior to the council meeting), the soft copies of the material were critical timesavers as I prepared my statement.  I had about 45 minutes to prepare my statement after finally gathering all of the documentation.  Without your help my case would have been substantially weaker.

At the beginning of the meeting the city attorney, who drafted the wording, presented the ordinance and explained the meaning and content.  As part of his justification he touted the Qutb vs. Strauss case which was specifically mentioned in the legal opinion on your website.  This case was dealing with Dallas's nocturnal curfew but the city attorney represented our ordinance as being almost exactly the same as the Dallas ordinance in the court case.  Of course our ordinance contained the daytime wording which put it in an entirely different category from the Dallas ordinance.  I quickly picked up on this misrepresentation and was able to include it in my statement.  Had I not had this legal opinion at my disposal, because of your faithful response after business hours, I would not have seen the fallacy and neither would the city council.

Thank you again for your help yesterday.  I never actually thought we would benefit so directly from our membership in THSC.  It's that, "It won't happen to me" mentality and I was proven wrong. 

Kind Regards,

Frank and Nancy Buercklin

Murphy, TX

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