# Is this story about a town being taken over true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308 "2017-08-21T20:51:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/1 "2017-08-21T20:51:11Z")
I heard from I don’t know where/when that there was a small town in the US and due to loose residency requirements, a person was able to pay or persuade enough people, mostly homeless to move there, register to vote, then pass a bunch of new laws in the town, including renaming it after the organizer. I can’t recall what the name was, and I can’t seem to find it on search so I think I may have been fooled. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/2 "2017-08-21T21:44:51Z")
Sounds to me like an urban legend. Curious to find out if it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/3 "2017-08-21T22:03:19Z")
There’s Rajneeshpuram, but I don’t think that is what you had in mind. > **[Rajneeshpuram](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram)** > > Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States, located in Wasco County, Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988, its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh, later known as Osho. > Its citizens and leaders were responsible for launching the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, as well as the planned 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the United... ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/4 "2017-08-21T22:37:42Z")
I think it is, though. It matches **Bone** ’s description, as far as these vague memories allow. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/5 "2017-08-21T22:46:50Z")
I think that is it! Though from when I remember, the issue wasn’t fully resolved, or at least the way I heard it wasn’t. Here’s an [article about the issue in People](http://people.com/archive/to-keep-a-cult-from-taking-over-an-oregon-town-wants-to-go-out-of-business-vol-17-no-15/) written around the same time: > [@](#): > > Victory for either side is not assured. Under Oregon law, any U.S. citizen and resident of the state for more than one day may register on Election Day itself. To date 27 Rajneeshies are on the rolls, but there may be as many as 125 more who qualify living at the ranch. Margaret Hill thinks she can muster as many as 40 townsfolk for the vote. > > The cult has bought one-fifth of the town’s property, including the general store and café, reopening it as a vegetarian restaurant named Zorba the Buddha. It does have some key elements correct, like the voter registration, influx of new people, and kinda sorta the laws aspect (town council). Apparently I got a bunch of the other key information mixed up, it wasn’t homeless people, but there were sorta cult people. Thanks for the find! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/6 "2017-08-21T23:00:07Z")
Something (maybe a mention here?) clued me in on the Rajneeshies a while back, and I found [this](http://www.oregonlive.com/rajneesh/index.ssf/2011/04/part_one_it_was_worse_than_we.html) 5-part story about them. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/7 "2017-08-21T23:27:11Z")
Then there was this: > **[Braselton Journal; Actress Buys Town A Place on the Map (Published 1989)](https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/31/us/braselton-journal-actress-buys-town-a-place-on-the-map.html)** and from Wikipedia: The town is named after Harrison Braselton, a poor dirt farmer who married Susan Hosch, the daughter of a rich plantation owner. Braselton built a home on 786 acres (318 ha) of land he purchased north of the Hosch Plantation. The land he purchased was later called Braselton.[6] In 1989 actress and Georgia native Kim Basinger and other investors bought 1,751 acres (709 ha) of the town’s 2,000 privately owned acres for $20 million from Braselton Brothers Inc, intending to turn it into a tourist destination.[7] Five years later, on the eve of personal bankruptcy, she and her partners sold the town at a large loss. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/8 "2017-08-22T01:45:24Z")
There’s also [Jonestown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown), which fills all the requirements except for being in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/9 "2017-08-22T02:08:40Z")
Yes, it is true. A group of White Supremecists tried to take over a town in North Dakota. The documentary is [Welcome to Leith](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3962848/?ref_=nv_sr_1). ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/10 "2017-08-22T02:14:42Z")
Then there is [Stonewall Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Nation), but I don’t think that is what you had in mind, either. Here is [another description](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-radical-plan-to-turn-one-california-town-into-a-gay-utopia) of it. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/11 "2017-08-22T04:06:32Z")
I can’t see anything wrong in any of these. Neither the peoples nor places were exploited. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/12 "2017-08-22T04:15:53Z")
IIRC NPR had a story about a town with a single occupant who was paid to live there by some zoning commission because as the sole resident of the town he could vote on issues that affected the surrounding area, so the zoning commission during yearly elections voted on ballot issues that gave the commission the land for cheaper than it would have normally gone if the entire area was empty. ---
**Author:** ![biometricks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecae2f/32.png) [@biometricks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biometricks)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/13 "2017-08-22T13:20:16Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Apparently I got a bunch of the other key information mixed up, it wasn’t homeless people, but there were sorta cult people. It does in fact look like you got this pretty much correct. If you look a the Wiki page for the Rajneeshpuram spokesperson, Ma Anand Sheela ([Ma Anand Sheela - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Anand_Sheela)), she was involved in the following plot involving homeless people: [QUOTE=from Ma Anand Sheela’s wiki] By 1984 the ashram was coming into increasing conflict with local residents and the county commission (Wasco County Court). **Sheela attempted to influence the Wasco County Court’s November election and capture the two open seats by busing in hundreds of homeless people from within Oregon as well as outside, and registering them as county voters.** Later, when that effort failed, Sheela conspired, in 1984, to use “bacteria and other methods to make people ill” and prevent them from voting. As a result, the salad bars at ten local restaurants were infected with salmonella and about 750 people became ill. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/14 "2017-08-22T14:40:58Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > IIRC NPR had a story about a town with a single occupant who was paid to live there by some zoning commission because as the sole resident of the town he could vote on issues that affected the surrounding area, so the zoning commission during yearly elections voted on ballot issues that gave the commission the land for cheaper than it would have normally gone if the entire area was empty. You are probably thinking of what happened in Columbia MO a year or two ago, and it was certainly not intentional. Hopefully I can post a working link from my phone. [http://www.columbiatribune.com/6702c44b-0243-51f8-861c-1df0b462cd92.html](http://www.columbiatribune.com/6702c44b-0243-51f8-861c-1df0b462cd92.html) ---
**Author:** ![Pippers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b5a626/32.png) [@Pippers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pippers)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/15 "2017-08-22T16:21:49Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I can’t see anything wrong in any of these. Neither the peoples nor places were exploited. I dont know about the other cases, but the rajnesshies did a lot of harm to that community. A lot. It was a very ugly situation for several years. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/16 "2017-08-22T16:28:56Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I can’t see anything wrong in any of these. Neither the peoples nor places were exploited. Even after seeing post #13? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-story-about-a-town-being-taken-over-true/794308/17 "2017-08-22T19:01:22Z")
Then there was Bill Fries’ account of a small town in Colorado being taken over. :D