It happens more often than most of us, privileged as we are, think. The legality of an action isn't determined by law (black letter or case), but by law plus petition. The poorest and weakest members of society generally don't have the financial wherewithal to effectively see court challenges through, and public-minded legal groups only have so many lawyers and so much bandwidth.

These kinds of practices don't require local municipalities to be full of bad actors, but desperate ones. The private firms, on the other hand....