A chat with Stephen Kafoury on Measure 37

I had a funny occurrence yesterday:  Stephen Kafoury's wife accidentally dialed a wrong number and called me.  When I saw his name on my caller ID, I was like 'Whoa, how did he get my phone number!'  When she apologized for calling the wrong number, I asked, 'Is this the Stephen Kafoury Stephen Kafoury?' (you know how when you say it twice it means the thing or person that people know, rather than the one they don't know.)  She said it was, so I asked her how I could get a hold of him, and she was kind enough to give me the information.

I was able to get a moment of his time and spoke with him about Measure 37.  I asked him what he thought went wrong, and why did Oregonians vote for pro-conservation candidates and M37 at the same time.  First he said that conservation groups did not challenge the measure's ballot title and stop it in its tracks, but that's spilled milk now.  Secondly, he said that through polling  they have discovered that people who voted 'yes' on 37 viewed it as a 'fairness' issue rather than a 'land use' issue. 

The irony to this whole situation is that Oregonians in Action, the group that sponsored the measure, has back peddled from their very own ballot title, which requires compensation to land owners or a waiver to develop if government actions lower the value of their land.  When Gov. Kulongoski said the state would try to compensate land owners instead of giving them waivers, OIA screamed that they didn't want compensation, but the right to develop.  Those are wingnuts for you!

I asked Stephen what the long term plan is for dealing with this problem.  He said conservation groups have gathered under the umbrella of the Oregon Conservation Network and are working with the Oregon chapter of the American Planning Association on developing a thirty year view of Oregon land use laws and marketing it to the public.  They realize that there are thousands of people who have moved to Oregon who don't know who the late Governor Tom McCall is.  Stephen went on to say that new Oregonians understand that Oregon is beautiful, but they are unaware that its beauty is McCall's legacy.  Part of the strategy will be developing a message that makes a connection to McCall so new Oregonians will understand why Oregon is Oregon.

The Oregon Business Association is also involved in this project.

When I asked Stephen if he had any simple messages or bumper sticker slogans that conservationists could use when communicating with the general public, there was a brief silence at the other end, and then he chuckled and said, "I haven't come up with one yet, but it would be a good idea to do that." 

It would be, because when it comes right down to it, saving Oregon will be all about a good marketing strategy.  Oregon's conservationists should not shy away from using scare tactics, because many of the M37 claims coming in are nothing less than scary.  Conservationists should, on the other hand, shy away from getting too wonkish in their marketing because people will tune out.

Note: Stephen Kafoury is a board member of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and a land use conservation lobbyist in Salem.  I'd like to thank him for his generosity in taking the time to share his views with a blogger.

Comments

[the full deck]

You guys don't get it do you. It's called PRIVATE PROPERTY. Do you know what private means?

[Sid]

full deck-
If you said this to me in a coffee shop (where I was drinking a latte, reading the New York Times and had my Volvo parked outside) I would look at you and then go back to reading my paper. But because this is a public forum, I'm going to respond.

There are no constitutional guarantees, state or federal, for a land owner's private property rights. That's why OIA took their issue to the ballot rather than the courts. The Founders understood that what a land owner does with their property has an effect on the community, and therefore did not include exclusive rights for property owners.

If you have a crap pile on your property and are stinking up the neighborhood, you have to get rid of it.

[the full deck]

A crap pile on my property? That's a stupid example, and if that's all you can come up with there's no reason to have a debate. A person who spends money on buying a piece of property has made and investment, and they have the right to exercise that investment.

[Neo]

I agree with "the full deck".

HitlerBush and the RepubliNazis have no business dicking around with:

(a) the right of private citizens to cheney whomever they want to, regardless of whether said receipients of the cheneying have a cheney or a cuntleeza, and whether the cheneying happens up the colin-bowell,

(b) the right of private citizens to control when they decide that the quality of their lives has decreased sufficiently that it is better to pull the plug than continue to suffer,

Thanks you "the full deck" for continuing the good fight in favor of private property rights against HitlerBush and the RepubliNazis---without you, we would be lost.

It is clear that HitlerBush and the RepubliNazis have no idea what the word "private" means.

[Sid]

NEO!

It's the so called 'HitlerBush and RepubliNazis' that you speak of who support the developers who want to come into Oregon and build their cookie-cutter-three-car-garage subdivisions in rural areas. Why do you think some of these people are asking for millions of dollars or the right to develop! It's all about greed and screwing the community, along with the neighbors and farmers who's own property values will go down b/c of the development.

'full deck' is probably a Republican. I'll bet you!

[Anish]

I think 'crap pile' is a great example. One cannot start a landfill business on a "private property" and claim that the community does not have a right to regulate what is done on this "private property".

Communities restrict the rights of private property owners all the time:
1) illegal activities are not allowed. "the full deck" cannot start a meth lab and say -- lay off this is private property
2) communities have zoning laws. "the full deck" cannot open a liquor store or a smut-shop right in front of a middle school.
3) communities restrict certain activity like loud music/concerns to specific time periods within a day.
4) If you live in a condo there are CC&Rs to follow.

There is a potentially a big impact of what a person does on her "private property" on the community and the community should have a right to create rules for this (within limits). For example, environmental concerns, traffic, highway use, demands on utilities like water/electricity, fire/ambulance etc can provide justifications for restrictions.

A blanket statement that this is "private property" so lay off is ridiculous, patently selfish, short-sighted and lacks basic understanding of how things work. All freedoms have limits. It is just a question of where to draw the line.

[the full deck]

Neo, Sid is right. I'm a Republican. Whatever RepubliNazis are... is that some new party you made up?

As to Anish, you're giving bad examples, like smut-shops. I'm talking about property that's out in the open and has nothing on it, like so much of the land in Oregon. If you own that land you should be able to subdivide it and build as many homes as you want. It's your land. But I understand there are some limits based on some of the things you said.

[Neo]

Of course I know the guy is a RepubliNazi.

My entire comment was tongue-in-cheek and satirical; I don't think there is any point debating RepubliNazis about private property (or privacy rights or anything) using fact and argument, pretending as if they themselves are arguing from a logically self-consistent point of view.

No, RepubliNazis do not care about the consistency of their positions, nor do they argue logically---their goal is to smear liberalism with as dirty a set of tactics as they can sink to.

The only response I give to RepubliNazis is to turn their own arguments against them. For example:

---
RN: Private property and privacy are important.

Me: I agree with you that HitlerBush and AshcroftNazi (and soon, Alberto Torquemada) are invading our privacy.

---
RN: Howard Dean is far too liberal and out-of-the-mainstream.

Me: I agree with you that HitlerBush and the RepubliNazis are worse than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol-Pot put together.

---
RN: Failure to support our troops whole-heartedly is just aiding and abetting the terrorists.

Me: I agree with you that HitlerBush and PoppyBush are in cahoots with the Saudis, and are aiding and abetting terrorists by not investigating the 9/11 bombers from Saudi Arabia. Must be the oil money greasing their assholes.

---

and so on. Why waste valuable time and energy with argument when argument (in the classical sense of "a connected series of statements intended to establish a certain proposition") is irrelevant here. What is needed is "contradiction", "abuse", and "getting hit on the head" for these "snotty heaps of parrot dropping" and "toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts".

Conservatives (if there are any left) have lost the right to critize liberals without first cleaning house themselves. Let them get rid of the filthy crap that infests their ideology, and pay penance for their sins and war-crimes. Once that is done, and the world has had a few decades to assuage its pain and suffering, conservatives can come back into the sphere of public discourse. Until then, they are hypocrites that deserve no respect.

Even today, Germans feel collective guilt for National Socialism. If American democracy is worth anything, people should rise up and make RepubliNazism evoke an unbearable revulsion for decades, if not centuries, to come. Otherwise, this democracy is worth crap, and will certainly not survive even until the end of this decade.

Let us not legitimize RepubliNazis by responding with seriousness to their so-called "arguments". There are other ways of responding to RepubliNazis:

(a) Use satire _and_ invective. To paraphrase P.G.Wodehouse, prefer both the rapier of sarcasm _and_ the bludgeon of abuse. No sense picking one weapon over another. Hit the bastards with everything you have.

(b) Make stuff up. They do. All the time. Without shame. The more outrageous the stuff, the easier it is to attribute it to Falafel O'Reilly and Oxycontin Limbaugh.

(c) Never give RepubliNazis the benefit of doubt. Ever. They are guilty of having spawned decayed seed like HitlerBush, and they deserve no sympathy or respect. Each and every one of them is a war-criminal of the worst sort.

The war has arrived, and the dirtiest fighter will win. It is time for liberals to cheney the nazi turds.

The RepubliNazis have succeeded in turning "liberal" into a dirty word. It is time to turn "republican" and "conservative" into badges of eternal shame.

It is time to make "cheney" a synonym for both "fuck" and "dick/cock"---in honor of the Halliburton thug and war-racketeer. Bonus: the FCC can never stop you from doing it, and everyone with above-room-temperature IQ (i.e. excluding HitlerBush) will know exactly what you mean from the context. I want to see cheney become the next santorum.

Assert the identity of RepubliNazism and fascism. Repeatedly. The assertion has the added benefit of being true.

Lakoff talks about frames and language. It is time for turbo-frames and turbo-language---we do not have the time and luxury for slowing winning over hearts and minds.

The wimpy media are not going to be there to help us; they are deep in collusion with the RepubliNazis.

Democrat politicians are not going to be there to help us; they are deep in collusion with rapacious corporations and with the RepubliNazis.

It is up to individuals to take the fight to the mother-cheneying, father-cheneysucking, Nazi, war-criminal scumbags.

[Sid]

Neo-
Whew! I should have known your comments to 'full deck' were tongue and cheek.

Your daily rants on this blog keep getting better. You're a true raging radical. I'm sure my friends out there who read this blog do so partly because of 'Neo's rants.'

[Dr. Del Amor]

"Protecting Oregon from blight is a mutual right."

[Sid]

Dr.-
That's a great slogan.

It looks like this is going to be a tough battle. We're up against some serious big biz lobbyists.

[James John Bell]

Lakoff would probably look at the binary of "public land" and "private land". Folks who want to protect public land from the impact of private land owners (like protect their water quality or salmon run from a logging company operating on private land) need to recognize that the word "public land" has a bad wrap - it makes you think of public bathrooms, public housing, public parking, public schools - messy and broken places that function a lot better if they were just private, like private schools, etc.

One way to counter this would be to utilize the negative aspects of private when framing a private land debate, as in "When company X messes with the private parts of Jenny Creek it will damage her for a long time, which hurts all of us cause it impacts our water quality..." - You get the idea.

This is just one cut throat messaging example, there are many more that embody a new frame in the statement, like "private landslides are not good for anybody..." Nobody would disagree with that statement, in an argument you could say to the media "Does Company X realize that private landslides are bad?" Which makes them have to agree with you and draws the argument into your new frame where they're on the defensive.

These are just some quick examples off the top of my head,

[James John Bell]

Lakoff would probably look at the binary of "public land" and "private land". Folks who want to protect public land from the impact of private land owners (like protect their water quality or salmon run from a logging company operating on private land) need to recognize that the word "public land" has a bad wrap - it makes you think of public bathrooms, public housing, public parking, public schools - messy and broken places that function a lot better if they were just private, like private schools, etc.

One way to counter this would be to utilize the negative aspects of private when framing a private land debate, as in "When company X messes with the private parts of Jenny Creek it will damage her for a long time, which hurts all of us cause it impacts our water quality..." - You get the idea.

This is just one cut throat messaging example, there are many more that embody a new frame in the statement, like "private landslides are not good for anybody..." Nobody would disagree with that statement, in an argument you could say to the media "Does Company X realize that private landslides are bad?" Which makes them have to agree with you and draws the argument into your new frame where they're on the defensive.

These are just some quick examples off the top of my head,

[Sid]

Nice. I like the frame of "private landslides." I wonder if any those massive mudslides in CA were on private property? Some people were killed in those.

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