Oregonians have twice voted to restore private property rights to owners; most recently in the form of their landslide endorsement of Ballot Measure 37. Presently, Oregon's legislature is poised to rewrite the law, urged on by the usual suspects: "planners", fishwrappers, and environmeddlists. Is this a good idea, or merely an attempt to dilute the will of the people?
Until quite recently, the right of owners to use their property was unquestioned. Increasingly, layers of restrictions handed down by governmental "planners" have hobbled - and in some cases, destroyed - the ability of owners to use their property. Whatever would our founding fathers have had to say about this circumstance?
Thomas Jefferson held the view that ownership was sancrosanct; that nobody - not even the government - had the right to access, much less force sale of, said property. By contrast, James Madison held the view that government - and government alone - had the right to force sale, provided that such sale was for public use, and so long as the government paid fair market value for the property in question.
Madison's view was eventually incorporated into the Articles of Amendment. During the course of the past 50 years, however, a considerable reinterpretation has occurred at the governmental level: the term, "public use" was somehow equated with the lesser term, "public interest". And in recent years, this perverted view has led to governmental "planners" slapping "environmental overlays" onto private property, and to whole agencies whose only function is to "police" private property. If you have a creek running through your back yard, they insist that the property owner allow only native plants within fifty feet of it. You want to plant a vegetable garden in your back yard? Hah! Those plants aren't native.
So your back deck is wobbly and you want to replace it? Send $1200 to Portland and they'll look over the plans and decide whether or not you can replace the deck. That's a nonrefundable fee, by the way.
Want to subdivide a 20-acre place that you purchased fifty years ago? Sorry, new restrictions. Just ask Dorothy English. Suddenly, you really don't have any property rights. That's why Measure 37 passed by a huge margin - most people recognize injustice when they see it.
And now the legislature's thinking about "fixing" the law.
That's just odd. They should be thinking about their collective butts. Because that's what's going to be kicked if they mess with the will of the people on this.
