X-Message-Number: 3973
From: Trygve Bauge <>
Subject: Reply to Platt
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 01:55:34 +0100 (GMT+0100)

> In Message #3964 Charles Platt <> says:
> Subject: Bauge case
> 
> I am not sure why Trygve Bauge keeps posting the details of his case here;
> surely he doesn't expect us all to rise up in wrath against small-town
> bureaucrats in Colorado? 
Actually yes, I do. Because if not stopped the attacks on cryonics
will spread. Witness France, British columbia and other places
where the authorities are outlawing cryonics. Besides many of you know
me and several of you have been very supportive. 
> 
> I sympathize with his situation, because it is not a happy one. But it
> does seem to me that there is a very simple lesson here: if you start your
> own little cryotorium without warning the neighbors or negotiating with
> local officials, you're liable to run into trouble.
Before we even bought the land I spoke to the planning commission
and made clear my plans to build a house and a cryonic facility
up on that hill. They were not trilled, but at the end of the meeting
Someone refered me to the local zoning law, and pointed out to me
that there was nothing there against what I was planning, I got hold
of a copy and I complied with it. and the town did not attack me
or try to stop me while I was there. It was only when i got deported
that the town trustees jumped on the opportunity to shut us down.
All the neighbors know about it because I went to great length to 
negotiate a large enough road easement and build a large enough
driveway so that we could have 18 wheel liquid Nitrogen trucks
drive the whole way up to the facility.
As you know every step I took was documented in the Immortalist,
and I know of at least one local radio station producer that subscribe.
When we received Al campbell I sent out 100 press releases about
it to the colorado press, but since the first part of the press package
focused on my fight with the INS it took actually several months before
any journalist discovered the cryonic part.
In the mean time I got deported, and the town trustees jumped on the 
opportunity to try to shut us down, and the story broke.
I contacted lots of press contacts and they were instrumental
in stopping the town trustees, The mayor has now resigned and is not
running for reelection. In all 3 of the trustees have resigned too.
The law was on our side, but the situation was too much for my mother
she had a mental break down and is now recovering in a Norwegian
mental hospital. We have exellent support from the press and population
in Nederland and Boulder. With some more support from the cryonic movement 
we could 
actually win. However the battle has been expensive, when they deported me
they took away my computer job and other income, 
and when the town trustees scared off
my client the cryonic venture that had been paying for itself while I
did the work, now started costing us 350 dollars a month to operate with
hired help. My mother was forced out of the house and had to rent
a place elsewhere. This and expenses brought about by her
illness caused that we could not afford to keep the attorney we had
hired. My mother already mentally ill, represented herself in court
and lost. The court refused to appoint an attorney to represent her
and has so far also refused to let me represent her.
> Does anyone really
> think it makes good sense to keep people who are legally dead on your
> property, frozen in boxes, without expecting any problems from the public
> health department (at the very least)?
The Boulder county health department came out on our side!
No problem there as long as he is frozen. And the town of Nederland
is under the jurisdiction of the Boulder county health department.
My grand father is in a dry ice box, in a metal shed,
This was only intended as a one month interim solution
when I moved my grand father from Trans Time and to Nederland Colorado
David tate was to supply a two person electrical freezer,
going down to -95 degrees celcius. He ordered it, received it
and found out that his friend Al was 1 inch wider than he had 
originally thought. the elbows and feet where sticking out.
So he had to return the electrical freezer. And suddenly we
had two people on dry ice in a temporary metal shed
instead of two people in an electrical frezer in a sturdy wood shed.
The plan had been to complete the main building which has a two 
story area fit for two 4 person metal dewars, and instal one
dewar last summer. The sudden deportation that violated my
appeals rights, and the town trustees sudden illegal attempt
at going after my weak old mother as soon as I was out of the 
picture, prevented the upgrading of the facility to steel dewars
in the nice fire, storm and earthquake proof concrete building
that some of you might remember having seen in the immortalist.
The long run plans already drawn up called for a large underground
facility with capacity 5 dewars and expandable. 
The house was laid out on the property so to fit this expansion.
The attempt was to create a state of the art professional
cryonic facility, but without respect for freedom of contract
and without respect for private property, such value creation
has become much harder.
 
> 
> There is a more serious aspect to this situation: "Do it yourself" 
> cryonics tends to undermine the efforts of larger organizations to pursue
> cryonics in a more legally legitimate and social acceptable way.
This was never intended as a do it yourself operation, it didn't
violate any law, and the town had to ban cryonics post defacto
As a matter of fact they had no legal standing to apply the ban
retroactively and we are grand fathered in. However it doesn't help
to be right when one lacks the liberty and money, or as in my mother's
case: the wherewithall to read the legal papers and defend our rights
systematically and rationally in court. The local authorities took
advantage of her weakness.
Nederland has about 1500 people and a local journalist polled 100 of them.
The local poll showed that 70 percent of the people in nederland
were on our side. What I did was not socially unacceptable!

> This
> ultimately reduces our chances, as cryonicists, to be taken seriously and
> to survive in the long term. 
Not defending what I did, certainly would reduce our chances,
 
> I also think it is rather unrealistic to expect fair and decent treatment
> from local officials when one has flouted their authority in quite a
> dramatic way. 
The trustees are up for election in May, If you assist me now,
we could very likely end up with a set of trustees that would want
to let the community benefit from what my cryonic facility and
life extension center plans has to offer.

>I'm sure there have been procedural errors and injustices in
> the way that they have dealt with Trygve, but I also feel this should have
> been expected, under the circumstances. The State is not kind to those who
> defy it, and no amount of complaining by Trygve is liable to change this
> situation.
The problem is not with the state nor with the feds nor with the county
nor with the population nor with the press, nor with most of the
immediate neighbors. One neighbor has complained, and 6 of the existing
town trustess have a vested interest in saving face from their first
hysterical overreaction.. 
Maybe it should be expected, the way one should expect to be hit by
lightening on a clear day.
I am not just complaining about the situation, I am doing something
to rectify it, and I am calling upon you to assist.
Thanks, and long life,
and feel free to come and visit my WWW pages while I am in exile.
Trygve
 

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