When you lay down with dogs, you may catch fleas.

It could turn out to be the costliest story ever written in a Utah weekly newspaper.

In April 2015, the Richfield Reaper covered a new initiative to export Utah coal through a port in Oakland, Calif., and across the Pacific Ocean. The story found its way to Bay Area environmentalists, who quickly circulated the piece and were outraged that Oakland’s waterfront could become a conduit for shipping fossil fuels overseas.

What followed was a decade-long political and legal saga that ultimately could push the struggling City of Oakland toward bankruptcy.

A Kentucky-based company had secured approval to construct a port facility, only for the authorization to be revoked, leading to its eventual bankruptcy.

In 2013, the city gave permission to a local developer, Phil Tagami, to build a $250 million shipping terminal on that land. He then signed a lease with a company that planned to ship as many as 12 million tons of coal per year, according to court documents. It was set to become the largest coal export facility on the West Coast, opening up Asian markets as demand dipped domestically.

Essentially what happened was two years after the shipping terminal was agreed to, the city of Oakland worked with environmental protesters reneging on the contract they had with Phil Tagami in 2016 and blocked coal shipments by city ordinance. So, Mr. Tagami sued the city in court and won.

Now, the city of Oakland—already saddled with hundreds of millions in debt and with its public school system under state control—faces liability for at least $230 million, a figure that could balloon to more than $600 million once interest is factored in.

The politicians who have governed Oakland for years—most notably the former mayor, who is currently under indictment for bribery and corruption and has openly expressed anti-capitalist views—appear to have deliberately steered the city toward losing jobs, tax revenue, and long-term economic prospects. Mission accomplished!

Worst of all, Oakland politicos haven’t done anything to address the insolvency of their own making. They brought this on themselves and deserve to go bankrupt