New Frames

How to pay for Measure 37 development

Now that the Oregon Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that found the Measure 37 property development law unconstitutional, Oregonians need to figure out a way to pay for the high cost of development outside of urban growth boundaries around the state.  Traditionally when developments are built, taxpayers are responsible for most of the short and long term costs.  These costs include but are not limited to: new roads, sewer and water systems, emergency services and schools.  Developers kick in a small percentage of the short term costs, a.k.a "impact fees", when the development is approved for building.  As Happy Valley residents are quickly learning (pdf), those "impact fees" are not enough to cover the costs of running a community, even within an incorporated area where efficiencies are already available through existing infrastructure. 

So how will we pay for M37 development?  This is what I propose:  Property owners and developers who want to build subdivisions and the like outside of urban growth boundaries, and therefore away from established infrastructure, should pay for 100% of the cost of roads to and from the developments, the upgrading of existing roads near the developments, sewers and/or septic tank impacts, public water lines that may be required due to the likelihood of low water tables in rural areas, impact to the local school district (a formula could be established that would calculate the cost each new house would have on nearby schools), a percentage of the future costs to upgrade the rural freeway interchanges that feed into these new developments (the cost could be calculated based on the number of homes in new developments that are dependent on particular freeway entrances and exits) and any other required services such as electrical lines.

Oregon taxpayers should not be responsible for paying a single penny of any development costs outside their cities' urban growth boundaries.  If property rights activists believe that property owners can do whatever they want with their property or be compensated by the government for not being able to develop, then those owners should pay for the cost of their development in full, thank you very much.

After witnessing miles of public water lines being put in, roads upgraded, trailer buildings being added to the local overflowing school, a freeway interchange upgrade that cost close to 75 million, etc. all in the name of several big rural subdivisions near my mom's farm in Clark County, Washington, I was appalled to learn that the state and county taxpayers were paying for most of it.  The feds kicked in a few mil for the interchange upgrade since it was on I-5.  The landowners and developers walked away with hundreds of millions.  The minimal impact fees that they had to pay were simply passed on to the new home buyers.

So, are the anti-tax activists with me on this?  Oh, I forgot, they're some of M37's biggest supporters.  They want their bread and they want it buttered too.

You can buy an auto-rickshaw in PDX!

For anyone who has ever crammed into a three-wheeler in India with five other people and loved it, you're in luck!  You can buy an auto-rickshaw in Portland now from Columbia Scooters.

While we send our software jobs to India, they're sending their Bajaj scooters and three-wheelers over here.  Now some of you might not think that's a very good trade-off, but for those of us who've experienced the magic of auto-rickshaws in India and witnessed entire families riding on a single Bajaj scooter, we're psyched!

                                 

Oregon Apollo initiative filed. Sign up now!

Readers of this blog know that I get cynical every so often (see posts on Gordon Smith and triangulating Dems) and despite my cynicism, I still like to think the glass is half full, thanks to groups like Onward Oregon.  In other words, my cynicism isn't by nature defeatist.  While I think the Dems in the DC establishment are a bunch of spineless knuckle heads and the Republicans are criminals, I have a lot of hope in the brave spirits that are helping put together a new vision for our future, especially here in Oregon. 

Part of that vision here in the Northwest is Oregon Apollo, the ballot initiative that will propel Oregon into a leadership position on new energy technology.  Onward Oregon is the launch pad for Oregon Apollo, and the place where you can sign up to be a part of this exciting project.  Would you like to hold a house party to help raise money for Oregon Apollo?  Want to help gather signatures to ensure that the initiative gets on the ballot?  Or maybe you'd like to canvass in your neighborhood?  Whatever it is, Oregon Apollo is looking for Oregonians to join them, so sign up today and let's make Oregon the bioneering leader of the nation and the Pacific Rim!

Onward Oregon: New web home for Oregon Apollo

Some cool, as in global, news from Onward Oregon:

Onward Oregon is the web home of Oregon Apollo, the ground-breaking ballot measure to ensure that Oregon remains a leader in clean and renewable energy and moves toward independence from foreign oil.

And what is the Oregon Apollo initiative?

We need to stop outsourcing and hemorrhaging Oregon's job base.  With oil supplies shrinking and oil at over $60 a barrel, we'd be smart to pioneer a clean energy technology industry and make Oregon—not California or China—the green tech capital of the Pacific.

Do you want to get involved to help ensure that this visionary initiative ends up on our ballot next November?  Sign up and find out about all the great things you can do to help get Oregon Apollo off the ground!  By signing up you will get a petition sent to you so that you, your family and all your friends can sign it.  You can get at least 20, right?  So, what are you waiting for, sign up right now!

Lang grab dropped from budget bill

The public land grab that had been quietly tucked into the federal budget bill got dropped from the bill.  A coalition of hunters, anglers and environmentalists helped put an end, for now, to the right-wing GOP dream of privatizing our treasured lands.  Hunters and environmentalists make strange bedfellows, but lately they've been waking up quite a lot next too each other... next to the campfire.

Stop the land grab! Call Wyden now!

The House budget bill that includes a massive public land giveaway passed last week.  It now goes into committee to be reconciled with the Senate version, which does not include the giveaway.  Let's face it, the budget bill sucks big time, but some version of it is going to pass no matter what.  We have to make sure that whatever passes does not include the selling off of our public lands; you know, those places where we hike, ski, hunt, fish, camp, mountain bike, find solace...

Our senator, Ron Wyden, sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which means he will be part of the bill's reconciliation process.  We need to call, fax and e-mail Wyden asking him to stop the public land giveaway from being included in the final bill.  Please take a few moments to urge Wyden to stop the "1872 mining provision" from being finalized.  This is worse than the proposed drilling in ANWR.

Call him at 202.224.5244
Fax him at 202.228.2717
and e-mail him.

Lots of small town newspapers across the west are writing about this.  You can read some of those articles here.  The Oregonian finally wrote a front page story last Thursday on this with the focus on what's at stake in Oregon.

Spokesman-Review calls on hunters and anglers

More and more news outlets are starting to get it:  The House budget reconciliation bill isn't just a bad bill because of its targeted cuts to the poor, but also due to its wholesale ripoff of the taxpayers through the selling of our public lands at dirt cheap prices to corporate interests.  It's the dream of every right wing conservative; the privatization of our public lands.

A columnist in the Spokesman-Review definitely gets it and he has called on sportsmen and women to call their representatives right now:

If you hunt and fish in Idaho and Washington, go right now to your computer and call up the Web sites for your members of the House of Representatives.

go to the contact page for your representative, fill out the contact form, and in the little box where you type your message, write the following: "Please don't let Richard Pombo sell my favorite places to hunt and fish."

Then type, "In the name of all that is holy, please vote 'no' on HR 4241."

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's editorial board gets it and has written a strong piece against Pombo's corporate giveaway:

Outraged by a controversial deal in which a Canadian mining giant paid a mere $9,000 for clear title to harvest an estimated $10 billion in gold from U.S.-owned lands, Congress in 1994 slapped a moratorium on such giveaways perpetrated under the federal Mining Law of 1872.

Since then, the law has languished, in need of serious reform relevant to the 21st century, not the 19th. But House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., under the guise of reforming the law and under cover of the omnibus budget bill, proposes an even worse public lands giveaway...

[...]"It could literally lead to the privatization of millions of acres of public land, including national park and national forest lands," said The Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth.

As Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., put it, "They want to give away the taxpayers' gold."

That would be a crime.

And that comes as no surprise to those of us who've been watching the right wing political machine.

I've already written about this sneaky little provision several times on this site and over on the Onward Oregon blog, so I'll refrain from going into detail.

"an environmental rollback of epic proportions"

Unlike the editorial board at the Oregonian, the editors at the Eugene Register-Guard understand that the privatization of public lands, something that has been conveniently and quietly tucked into the House budget bill, will have huge consequences.  We have yet to hear a peep from the O.  Neither its news pages or its opinion section seem to know what's going on.

The editorial board at the Guard, on the other hand, has published a pointed editorial on Republican corporate wheeler and dealer, Rep. Richard Pombo, who sneaked the provision into the bill and the possible impact the bill will have nationally and in Oregon:

The proposal is an environmental rollback of epic proportions. It would lift an 11-year-old ban on the sale of federal land to mining companies and make millions of acres of public lands available to companies for the bargain-basement price of $1,000 per acre...

This breathtaking giveaway is the brainchild of Rep. Richard Pombo, a California Republican who chairs the House Resources Committee... Last month, Pombo introduced a proposal that would have privatized 15 national parks, although his aides later insisted it was just a joke...

...individuals and companies would be allowed to buy land they are mining, as well as adjacent parcels for "sustainable economic development" - conveniently vague wording that presumably could include real estate investments (think wilderness resorts, golf courses, retirement villages).

An estimated 6 million acres of public lands on which active mining claims are currently staked, including nearly 200,000 acres in Oregon could be "patented" under Pombo's proposal...

...Purchasers of public lands would no longer be subject to federal requirements, such as posting bonds or complying with the National Environmental Policy Act...

Read the entire editorial and send a letter to the O reminding them that their counterparts in the rest of the state are writing about this.

Hiding public land privatization in the budget bill

We all know that right wing conservatives despise having anything owned by the public, even if it's Old Faithful or Crater Lake.  The fact that millions of acres of land in America is owned by the public is a complete anathema to these types of conservatives, and they've been itching to privatize them.  Like the issue of ANWR, one would assume that the conservative push to privatize our public lands, which include national forests, deserts, high plains and national parks, would be headline news, but it's not.  What's even more bizarre is that this attempt at privatization is actually hidden in the House budget bill... you know, the one that everyone is talking about; the one that originally had drilling in ANWR in it, and the one that focuses its cuts on the poor.

The route to privatization conservative House members are taking is through a repeal of a ban on an obscure 1872 mining law, which allowed mining companies to stake out federal land at $2.50 to $5.00 an acre for the sole purpose of making a profit at mining.  If a company could not demonstrate this to the feds, the government could challenge the company and retain the land in federal hands.  The repeal on the ban has included a sneaky little provision that prohibits the government from challenging mining claims, thus allowing companies to resell the land as real estate. 

This puts all public land at stake.  In other words, some company could stake out a few hundred acres in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend for "mining" purposes, decide not to mine and resell it for development.  Currently up to 11,600 acres in the Siskiyou National Forest alone are at stake for privatization because there are 580 active mining claims waiting for this bill to pass.

Conservative House members claim that the selling of our lands would help raise money to pay the federal debt, and have increased the per acre cost from $2.50 to a paltry $1,000 (BFD!!)  It's a massive giveaway, something the right wing cons like to do for their buddies in the corporate world.

There is every reason that this backhanded attempt to privatize our public lands is as frightening as the proposed drilling in ANWR.  These lands represent a shared and common heritage for all of us, one that we would like to pass on, in tact, to our children and grandchildren so that they, like us, will get to enjoy activities like hiking, hunting, fishing, backpacking, camping, cross country skiing, etc.

There's not much time on this.  Although the budget bill is stalled in the House, it's only a matter of a week or two before the Republicans bully enough votes out of a few members to get the bill passed.  Oregon, along with all western states, has a lot of land at stake, so please contact your Congressional representatives today!

I've written about this topic at the Onward Oregon blog.

More media articles on this can be found here, here, here, here, and lots more if you google "public land budget bill"

Is land use planning a "government takings"?

There are a couple new posts over at Onward Oregon's blog that discuss Oregon's land use planning laws and fighting the next Measure 37.

Yours truly posted an entry yesterday about so-called "takings":

...let’s be clear and bust this myth about “takings” of private property by the state of Oregon through its land use laws. The owners still own their land. It has not been taken from them by Oregon’s government. The owners are free to keep or sell their land to whomever they please, which many Oregon land owners have done since Oregon’s land use laws were enacted.

Peter Bray posted an entry today about how we can defeat the next Measure 37:

...Measure 37 passed solely due to marketing and campaigning. Partly it passed because of effective framing and messaging from Oregonians In Action; and partly due to a completely ineffective opposition campaign.

So, surf on over to the Onward Oregon blog to share your thoughts.