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Home / Washington Business - September/October 2006 / Points of View: Farm Bureau says yes to I-933 |
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Points of View: Farm Bureau says yes to I-933 |
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Written On: September/October 2006 |
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Written By: by Dan Wood |
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Dan Wood is the director of government relations for the Washington Farm Bureau. He has previously served as a Grays Harbor county commissioner and was the founding executive director of Citizens for Responsible Resource Use, a statewide organization dedicated to supporting natural resource industries and private property rights.
In November, we can protect our rights and our pocketbooks at the same time by passing I-933, the Property Fairness Initiative.
More thoughtful decisions should result from requiring government agencies to consider costs and impacts before adopting new regulations. Requiring agencies to consider voluntary, cooperative alternatives will reduce the need for lawsuits and damage claims.
Tribal and environmental public interest groups — the very people who sue government to force more regulations — are now claiming they want to talk about protecting property owners and farmers across the state. They have already cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars through lawsuits, but now claim to be the taxpayers’ best friends.
These are the same people who have increased the cost of government by 17 percent in the last two years and have sued for more government regulation of our property. These are the people who argue that more regulations should trump growth management goals of economic development, thriving natural resource industries, and affordable housing.
Tribal and environmental interests have repeatedly tried to remove tidegates critical to the survival of agriculture in Skagit County. They have sued to force restrictions on economic development, farming, forestry, and even backyard gardens and playhouses.
They want us to trust them. "Just vote against 933, and we’ll sit down and talk about it." It’s the same hollow rhetoric we have heard for the past 10 years. How much more will we allow them to damage the use and enjoyment of our private property?
The opponents like to play games with questions and predictions of doom and gloom, but they refuse to discuss constitutional rights and the impact that burdensome regulations have on real people like Susan Rasmussen.
The Rasmussen family operated a Clark County dairy farm. It no longer exists. The Rasmussens wanted to sell about two acres to finance equipment needed to meet new environmental standards, but the county had changed the minimum lot size to 40 acres. Giving up that much land would leave them without enough to keep the 100-acre farm in business. They were not able to comply with the standards and lost the farm to the bank.
It’s not just farmers who suffer from the heavy hand of government overregulation.
The Ritters, a young family in Thurston County, own two five-acre parcels, one with a mobile home they use now and the other for the dream home they want to build.
Instead, proposed regulations would prohibit building any home on either parcel. New wetland buffers would render 90 percent of their property unusable, Ritter told the Farm Bureau last February.
You’ll find stories like these in King County, where rural property owners are told they must leave 65 percent of their property in "native vegetation."
You’ll find stories like these in western, eastern, rural and urban Washington. In Medina, a family was told by the city that they must remove a children’s playhouse because it covered too much of the natural yard.
Some western Washington counties have been discussing habitat for squirrels and banana slugs. Bellevue can fine someone up to $12,000 if they remove the wrong tree without advance city permission. State agencies ordered Ferry County to regulate for caribou habitat, even though no caribou have ever been seen there.
The list goes on and on. Similar regulations are spreading across our state. Something must be done.
I-933 will require government to justify the costs of new regulations and tell us whose property will be impacted. It will require state and local agencies to consider working cooperatively with property owners through voluntary programs to achieve environmental goals. It will require government to follow the state constitution and compensate owners when it damages the use and value of private property.
Government won’t have to compensate if it doesn’t damage our private property. We can make government respect our rights and treat everyone fairly by passing I-933. It’s up to Washington voters to make it happen.
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