[Capr-announce] CAPR News August 2008

[Jeff Wright]

CAPR NEWS

 

THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FROM CITIZENS' ALLIANCE FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS


August, 2008

 

 

September Meeting of King Co. Chapter at New Location

 

The September 4th meeting of the King Co. Chapter of CAPR will be held at
the King Co. Library System Center located at 960 Newport Way in Issaquah.
This one time change of location was made to accommodate a larger gathering
for our guest speaker, Mike Poulson.  Mike comes to us from the office of
7th District Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, whose district
encompasses much of eastern Washington.  We are fortunate to have Mike and
expect to hear about property issues in eastern Washington and also the
Yukon to Yellowstone (Y2Y) initiative being pushed by environmentalists.
Y2Y essentially aims to set controls on a vast swath of land down the rocky
Mountain chain, including "buffers" which would extend into eastern
Washington.  Y2Y amounts to another taking of property rights.

 

This meeting will start at 7:00 PM as usual and lacks the option of dinner
before the meeting.  Also, last month's "NEWS" noted that our speaker for
this meeting would be Chuck Cushman.  Mr. Cushman had to cancel for health
reasons.  We will work to reschedule him when appropriate.

 

 

Supreme Court Issues Significant Decision on GMA Challenges

 

In 2004, Thurston Co. updated its growth plan as stipulated by the Growth
Management Act (GMA).  While many land owners in the county thought it was
too extreme, the plan also included many common sense aspects.  For
instance, it correctly deducted wetlands from the land used to calculate the
"buildable" land available for its growth.  That sounds like a "no-brainer"
to a normal person.  It also allowed for a small amount of lots of less than
5 acres each in areas designated rural to fit in with what existed.  In
other words, the County considered how it wanted to, and how it made sense
to grow as instructed by GMA.  The only problem was that Futurewise didn't
get everything it wanted and immediately appealed to the Western Washington
Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB).  Luckily, Thurston Co., with help
from the Building Industry Association of Washington, didn't fold to
Futurewise as many local governments have done, but fought all the way to
the Washington Supreme Court and won.

 

On August 14th, the high Court ruled in Thurston
<http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/?fa=opinions.disp&filename=801151MAJ>
County v. Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board that Thurston
Co. had prepared its plan in accordance with GMA.  The Court decision was
unanimous and to make it even better, the opinion was written by Justice
Mary Fairhurst.  The opinion breaks the case down to the various points at
issue and instructs the GMBH to re-examine several issues.  But the
important point the Court makes, multiple times, is that the GMBH is not a
policy making institution.  It also rebukes the GMBH and the lower courts
for not following the law as written.  The opinion is as good an example as
you will find that too many courts and judicial bodies would rather make the
law than uphold it.  The other obvious conclusion one gets from the opinion
is how frivolous was the Futurewise challenge.  Again!

 

GMA started out with the best of intentions.  It was also written with holes
big enough for a terrorist to drive a truck through.  As they do and they
will continue to do so until safeguards are written into the law.

 

Also, it should be noted that Pacific Legal Foundation super attorney Brian
Hodges provided a brief in support of Thurston Co.  We're still wondering
when the man has time to sleep!

 

      

Follow-up File          

 

Fallout from CAPR v. Sims

As expected, we are already seeing positive fallout from the Supreme Court
decision n CAPR v. Sims in which the court struck down the King Co. pre-set
clearing rules.  At the "Snohomish County Tomorrow" meeting, Snohomish Co.
city representatives heard a presentation on the implications of the
decision.  Attorneys told those gathered that there were poor prospects of
reversal of the decision.  They also said that the cities would have to
build better legislative records in regards to proportionality analysis when
adopting new regulations. Read that "be fair" in plain English.   

 

Odds and Ends

 

Matching Contributions

If you work for a company, which adds matching funds to charitable
contributions, remember the CAPR Legal Fund.  All donations to the Legal
Fund are tax deductible and the additional contribution by your employer
makes leverages your contribution towards protecting your property rights.

 

 

CAPR Meeting Schedule

 

Please see the top of the page for this month's particulars.

 

 

Jeff Wright

Secretary, CAPR

E-mail:        jeff at proprights.org

 

 

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