Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Land confiscation rules spur rural push for ballot measure
— and a big protest

The Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights, a group of property owners in rural King County, Washington, was inspired by Oregon's successful Measure 37 to protect property rights.

They're pushing to put the county's new "critical areas ordinances" on the March 2005 ballot, but the county and environmentalists don't want the public to have a say in the matter.

Tim Trohimovich, planning director for the Seattle-based, foundation-funded 1000 Friends of Washington, said a vote "is a waste of the taxpayers' money."

So Rodney McFarland of May Valley, president of the Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights, said, "Put this on the ballot. This is America."

McFarland organized a horn-blaring, sign-waving protest demonstration and took it straight to the heart of King County's urban bureaucrats: downtown Seattle's Columbia Tower, headquarters of County Executive Ron Sims (left).

Horns honking and signs and American flags waving, dozens of rural residents marched on Seattle on November 23 to make their point: No CAO.

The CAO is the Critical Areas Ordinance, which, along with its companion regulations controlling land clearing and stormwater run-off, has outraged rural residents, who reject the county's ineffective efforts to make them more acceptable.

Robert Larsen of Carnation, Washington, waves signs in downtown Seattle to protest newly-passed critical-areas ordinances that destroy property rights in rural King County

One of the signs helped explain the protest if Seattle residents didn't quite understand it.

It read, "Let Sims take 65% of your land."

The new regulations require that rural property owners leave 50 percent or 65 percent of their land in its natural state, depending on its size.

There were some sharp exchanges during the protest. Robert Larsen of Carnation, holding an armful of signs, yelled at Karen Wolf, one of the key architects of the county's environmental regulations, to step in front of one of the trucks.

Wolf was watching the protest from the sidelines. She had no grasp of the anger her rules created.

The county's new rules that require owners to reserve their private property for public purposes are viewed by property rights advocates as not only a "taking" under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment, but outright theft.

"It's confiscation, impure and not so simple," said Ron Arnold, executive vice president of the Bellevue, Washington-based Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, which supports the efforts of the Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights.

Arnold said, "Government telling you to not to use half your land is the same as government telling you to give half your weekly paycheck to the Sierra Club. It's a body blow to the Ownership Society that created America's greatness to begin with.

"This protest is sorely needed to remind us that we have individual rights in this country and we have a right to seek redress of grievances at the ballot box."

Grim-faced county officials watched the protest, handing out news releases and a slick new brochure that gave their view of the controversial new ordinances.

They said that they haven't done a good job explaining the regulations to rural residents and also were trying to counteract the misinformation they say is coming from foes of the new rules.

Their claim is that the rules were adopted "to protect such rural resources as drinking water supplies and salmon streams against further development." Why the rules weren't applied to downtown Seattle, the population center of King County, and neighboring suburban cities wasn't mentioned.

"We think there is a lot of misunderstanding about what the CAO does and does not do,'' said Carolyn Duncan, a spokeswoman for the county. She said the new regulations don't affect existing uses nor are there changes in zoning.

These claims have fallen on deaf ears because of the obvious unfairness of penalizing rural land owners while leaving urban land use unchanged. Why not require half of the Columbia Tower skyscraper to be restored to native Douglas fir forest? Why not uncover half of Yesler Creek and restore its salmon run now obliterated by dozens of downtown Seattle streets and structures? Why not make Seattle home-owners leave half their lots in native plants such as skunk cabbage and devil's club? Why not plant half of Interstate 5 in blackberry thickets? Why not reintroduce wolves and grizzly bears in half of Ron Sims' back yard?

The unfairness of hitting the county's rural "Red State" residents while leaving Seattle's "Blue State" urbanites untouched rankles, regardless of the details of the ordinances.

For about 45 minutes the protesters circled several city blocks as city of Seattle police cleared their way. The protest was halted when officers were diverted to escort the visiting king and queen of Spain, in town on a shopping trip.

County employees, jurors and the public stopped in front of the courthouse to watch the protest. County Councilman Dwight Pelz watched intently. He supports the environmental regulations — and the public's right to protest.

"I congratulate them on a great protest," Pelz told a newspaper reporter.

"We got the point across," said the Citizens Alliance's McFarland.

Lawsuits fly

The morning of the protest, the county and two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against McFarland and the Citizens Alliance on the grounds that a referendum isn't a legal way to overturn environmental legislation required by the state's Growth Management Act.

"While we respect the citizens' right to initiative and referendum, the case law is clear. This ordinance package is not subject to that process," Sims said in a prepared statement.

The lawsuit asks that a judge declare that the county can't place the referendums on the ballot.

Bureaucrats and environmentalists want to deny the democratic process to their opponents and subject them to expensive and time consuming administrative challenges through the state's Growth Management Hearings Board, which has a reputation of ruling only against property rights.

The Pacific Legal Foundation is preparing a lawsuit against the county.

Rob McKenna of Bellevue, the state's new attorney general-elect, spoke as a current County councilman and defended the three referendums.

McKenna said that a referendum can be used to overturn environmental legislation that updates existing rules.

The fight for property rights is spreading. The Ownership Society is on the move.

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