[Capr-announce] CAPR News for April, 2007

Tue Apr 24 20:56:33 PDT 2007

CAPR  NEWS

THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FROM CITIZENS’ ALLIANCE FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS
April, 2007

Puget Sound Partnership – The Next GMA?

Did you know that King County intentionally spilled 436 million gallons of
untreated sewage and storm water into Puget Sound over the 2005 / 2006
winter season?   These spills were made to keep an antiquated sewer system
from backing up during large storm events.  Since that winter was a dry one,
and the yet to be reported 2006 / 2007 winter was very wet with a lot of
storm events, what will the reported spill for this period be?  Twice that?
Click here <http://www.metrokc.gov/health/hazard/cso.htm>  to read about it
on the King County website.  Note that the county hopes to have this
situation under control by the year 2030!

Regardless, it is only the tip of the pollution iceberg as there are ten
different cities around Puget Sound whose sewer systems deliberately dump
raw sewage into the Sound during heavy rains.   These events are known as
“Combined Sewer Overflows” (CSO’s) in the utility business.  Given that King
County contributed 436 million gallons alone, the total for all ten cities
probably approaches a billion gallons for that period!

Against the backdrop of a polluted Puget Sound, the legislature has created
legislation known as Puget Sound Partnership (PSP).  This new law creates a
state agency with broad powers that will affect all lands between the crest
of the Olympic Mountains and the crest of the Cascades.  And it has all of
the hallmarks of being another Growth Management Act (GMA) in the harm it
may do to property rights.

The Growth Management Act was created as a tool to help Washington’s more
populous counties plan for growth.  It prescribes that local governments
will use a balanced set of guidelines when making development decisions.
Among these are the need to provide affordable housing, adequate
transportation, development of natural resources, environmental protection
and others.  In its application, however, GMA has been perverted to the
point where little more than environmental protection is taken into account,
with its appointed Growth Hearings Boards being little more than kangaroo
courts far from voter control.

Puget Sound Partnership requires that the Governor appoint an eight- member
leadership council, which will develop a plan to clean up Puget Sound and
dole out vast sums of taxpayers’ money to various agencies and groups.
Sounds okay on the face of it but the devil is in the application.

This legislation was a priority of a coalition of 22 environmental
organizations, some of them quite extreme in their goals.  One, Washington
Environmental Council, has literally hijacked Jefferson County’s required
growth plan update process knowing that the financially weak county does not
have the ability to stand up to its legal ability to “challenge” the county
into submission.  It is planned that PSP will include non-governmental
organizations and it is not hard to guess which types will get the nod.

PSP will ultimately have the ability to influence and insidiously control
all lands that drain water to Puget Sound.  PSP is written as if there will
be balance in its initiatives, but given the horrors and abuse of GMA, we
all know how this can turn out.  CAPR, and all landowners and organizations
which prize property rights, will need to work proactively to influence how
this unfolds.

With the need to clean up Puget Sound, landowners will no doubt be told that
we will have to make some “sacrifices” to achieve the goal.  Property owners
in King and other counties have already made “sacrifices” at their own
expense under the guise of protecting clean water.  They have been “nickeled
and dimed” with regulations that have minimal benefit to the environment.
Meanwhile, King County takes a laid back attitude towards its “combined
sewer overflows” as it spends millions to buy open space, trades away a
major regional airport for a new bike path and promotes heavy urban
population density in areas that don’t have adequate sewer systems now.
Such is the hypocrisy of environmentalism in Western Washington.  It is easy
to see PSP taking a similar track and we can’t let that happen!

CAPR Becomes Intervener in Williams Case

A King County hearing examiner has agreed to let CAPR become an “intervener”
in defense of county property owners when their case goes before the hearing
examiner in May.  The Williams family is accused of clearing in excess of
50% of its’ approximately two acre property.  The clearing was done by the
owners for the safety of the structures on the property and to clear downed
and storm damaged trees.  They did the clearing after consulting the
Washington Department of Natural Resources and being told that they would
not need a permit to remove trees that were within one and a half tree
lengths of their structures.  However, the County has cited them due to the
facts that they exceeded the 50% limit in the Clearing and Grading Ordinance
and that the work was done without a permit required by the ordinance.

Vice President Preston Drew had been working with the Williams’ and their
attorney prior to the first hearing.  Preston was joined by CAPR Property
Rights Advocate, and President elect, Steve Hammond who gave testimony at
that hearing.  At that time, the hearing examiner consented to allow CAPR to
become an intervener for the Williams’ defense.  The examiner made that
decision not only as an aid to the Williams’ but also because he felt that
CAPR has an interest in the case.

CAPR feels that being named as an intervener in the case is significant.  In
the unhappy event that the decision of the hearing examiner goes against the
Williams’ at their May hearing, CAPR would then be in a position to appeal
the case to the court.  This would give CAPR the ability to challenge
certain aspects of the Clearing and Grading and Critical Areas ordinances.
And it appears that the County is taking the case seriously.  Rather than
being handled by D.D.E.S. staff, the case will be handled by the Prosecuting
Attorney’s Office.

These types of actions are made possible by those who have donated to the
CAPR Legal Fund.  Our thanks to them!

Drew Meets With CLC to Discuss Land Use Issues

CAPR Vice President Preston Drew has met twice with Michelle Connor of
Cascade Land Conservancy (CLC) to discuss land use issues.  Connor is Vice
President in charge of that organization’s “Cascade Agenda” which seeks to
set aside large tracts of land on both sides of the Cascade Mountain range
in coming years.  During the election season last year, many who opposed
Initiative 933, including CLC, admitted that there are inequities in
Washington land use policies that should be addressed.  Ms. Connor agreed to
sit down and discuss these issues.  Further discussion is planned with no
news to report at this time.

CLC was active during this legislative session.  It was successful in
helping to push through a bill to allow for regional transfers of
development rights.  CLC was not successful however, in getting the “Rural
Villages” bill passed.  That bill would have allowed dense developments of
up to 350 homes to be built in rural areas with their required, adjacent
native area buffers being deeded over to private organizations such as CLC.
CAPR opposed this hypocritical bill on the grounds that it would be an
unfair benefit to a few developers and would give land to private
organizations at taxpayer expense.  CAPR will continue to lobby against this
concept.

Support I-958, the Life Safety and Protection Initiative

The drive to get state initiative 958 is in full gear and needs your help.
This initiative would allow property owners to clear trees and brush within
100 feet of their building and utility lines.  It is actually ridiculous
that an initiative is needed to keep you home safe, but that’s the case.
You can read the initiative at www.yesonI958.squarespace.com
<http://www.yesoni958.squarespace.com/> .   You can get involved by emailing
I958 at centurytel.net <mailto:I958 at centurytel.net>  or by calling
360-378-3776.

Support King County Initiative, I-25

This one would give King County residents the vote to decide if the County
Elections Director should be a non-partisan, elected official.  Just about
everyone except the guy that controls the Elections Director thinks this is
a no-brainer.  Check out the website at www.AccountableElections.org
<http://www.accountableelections.org/>  and then email the campaign at
info at AccountableElections.org <mailto:info at AccountableElections.org>  to get
petitions to help get the initiative on the ballot.

CAPR Meeting Schedule

The next meeting of the King Co. Chapter of CAPR will be held at 7:00 PM,
Thursday   May 3, 2007.  The meeting site is the IHOP restaurant located at
1433 NW Sammamish Rd. in Issaquah.  Consider coming early for dinner and
conversation.

Support the Cause!

As a volunteer organization, CAPR depends on our supporters and Board to get
things done.  If you have time to donate, please contact us.  If you would
like to make a financial contribution, you can do so with this link:
http://www.proprights.org/donate.php.

Jeff Wright
Secretary, CAPR
E-mail:        jeff at proprights.org <mailto:jeff at proprights.org>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/capr-announce/attachments/20070424/6739a6fb/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 91137 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/capr-announce/attachments/20070424/6739a6fb/attachment-0001.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 5586 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/capr-announce/attachments/20070424/6739a6fb/attachment-0001.jpe 