[Capr-announce] News flash! Ron Sims' reversal on blackberry clearing fees

[ayousoufian at comcast.net]

6:49 PM, Friday, March 4, 2005 (this is short version of this email: long version with more commentary at www.yousoufian.blogspot.com )

Short subject: Ron Sims'/King County's 100% reversal on blackberry clearing fees 

Subject: King County DDES' March 3, 2005 press release announcing (in full "spin" mode) a complete elimination of the fees for clearing blackberries - but still requiring a permit to do so... and a few days wait to get it mailed to you (so much for getting up any given day and thinking it's a good day for clearing blackberries and going at it...)

Dear CAPR Colleagues,

Did you know the latest from Ron Sims' King County on blackberry clearing?  They've just eliminated the onerous and absurd fees ($500 to $1400) they were going to charge for a permit that would be required to cut blackberries.  But not the requirement to still get a permit and, thus, report to "big brother" what you are up to.  And it looks like if you happen to cut up a few native ferns, etc., while you're clearing those Himalayan blackberries, you could be violating the terms of the relief from the fees.  And it only applies to blackberries - doesn't look like it applies to scotch broom, thistles, salmonberries, horsetails, and other plants that you commonly find occasionally mixed in with the blackberries.

Of course, they are "spinning" this as a "refinement to King County’s land use regulations" and making what they are now doing, in reversing a just passed onerous regulation, sound like an enlightened act on their part.  And they are making it sound like they had nothing to do with putting the permit and fee requirement into law in the first place.  Instead, there's an implication this requirement was there for some time, in making the statement:  "Land use laws previously required a permit with a fee based on an hourly rate for removal of more than 7,000 square feet of blackberries."  Even that statement isn't true.  The fees were based on a flat rate for different brackets of area of blackberry to be removed.  I was never told anything about hourly rates when I researched the blackberry clearing fees for the articles I wrote in the Beachcomber and LOOP this past fall.  And the "Land use laws" they refer to that "previously required a permit" were only just put into effect at January 1, 2005, under the newly passed CAO.

The full press release is at:

http://www.metrokc.gov/ddes/press/press_blackberries.htm

More commentary and the full/long version of this email that went to the CAPR Discussion list is available by either joining the CAPR Discussion list, or simply going to my blog: www.yousoufian.blogspot.com , and looking for today's posting.  And please post a comment!

Armen Yousoufian
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