When they say, 'It's not about the money, it's about the principle involved.' then you know it's 'all about the money.'

So the county drags its feet, refusing to give Dorothy what she's entitled to and assuming that she'll just go away if they flex their bureaucratic muscles long enough. She then is forced to sue them in court for failing to fulfill their legal obligations, and after she wins, and a judge ORDERS them to pay her compensation, their attitude is still "Hey, we're in charge, we'll decide what we want to give you."

If Dorothy doesn't demand a monetary payment and attorney fees from the county, then they face no penalty for their illegal denial of her claim, and they will do it again and again, knowing they have nothing to lose. Every claimant will be forced to come up with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to sue the government, just to get their claim approved.

Thus the only people that will be able to obtain compensation are the ones that are already wealthy.

And you people claim that you're sympathetic to the needs of the little people.

So the county drags its feet, refusing to give Dorothy what she's entitled to and assuming that she'll just go away if they flex their bureaucratic muscles long enough. She then is forced to sue them in court for failing to fulfill their legal obligations, and after she wins, and a judge ORDERS them to pay her compensation, their attitude is still "Hey, we're in charge, we'll decide what we want to give you."

They're giving her what she's entitled to. What a ridiculous retort.

English quite obviously wants money, not rights. It's almost as if she's perpetuating a fraud on the court system and the taxpayers with this brouhaha at this point.

Carla, I fear your hunger for invective has interfered with your capacity for comprehension. Dorothy English was entitled to removal of restrictions from her property within a six-month period, without further legal action on her part. They did not give her that. What they did give her was an enormous legal bill and years of whatever time she has left in this life wasted.

And the only fraud perpetrated on the taxpayers was that of the county officials when they swore to uphold their duties as public servants. Instead of doing that, they denied a claim that they knew was valid in an effort to bypass a law they didn't like, and now we are stuck with the bill. I for one am not going to let those jerks off the hook by blaming Dorothy English for their arrogant mistakes.

M36 advocates always seem to forget about the rights of their neighbors.

So do M37 advocates.

Typical leftists - lying about the facts in order to personally attack the person they're abusing.

The claim that Dorothy is getting what she asked for or is entitled to is false, and the suit for damages is reasonable.

The only people who will be fooled by this BleuOregon screed are those who don't bother to seek out independent sources of information - i.e., most leftists.

“M37 advocates always seem to forget about the rights of their neighbors”

So does the City of Portland forget about the livability of neighbors when city building codes allows for the construction of multi-unit and often multi-story residential development in or adjacent to single family home neighborhoods, but exempts the developer from providing adequate parking. Just about every new development proposal that is multi-story in height and/or lacks ample parking repeatedly has neighbors complaining about the loss of privacy and/or the lack of parking whereby cars must then be parked on the street and in front of existing homes.

When is the Portland City Council going to act on these valid complaints from neighborhoods and residents? To complain about the rights of adjacent land owners when discussing M37 and then support the current density and lack of parking requirements in city codes is hypocritical. These city zoning and building codes need to be changed!

This is the issue where blueoregon and other progressives lose me. I vote for democrats because they fight for the little guy, the union worker, the person being discrimintated against. there are very few issues that should be more offense to progressives than the stealing of the fruits of our labor.

I read that Dorothy English is a life-time Democrat who had never voted for a Republican in her life...and all she owns in the world is this piece of land that she worked her life to payoff. Here a powerful interest came in a took away her rights.

If it is Enron or Walmart we are outraged, but if it is the city of Portland it is ok? m37 and now m49 push me to edge of voting for republicans...they may attack my union, but they are not stealing my life-savings. the city of portland gives millions to encourage certain types of rowhouse development near my house, and gives millions of breaks to waterfront highrise developers, but arrogantly screws with people like dorothy english.

Then progressive bloggers attack her. shame on you! I remember why i voted ross perot. M49 will make the democrats the minority again in this state.

This post is a little misleading. Whether you like M37 or not (and I personally hate it), the County had the legal responsibility to treat Dorothy English's claim according to the law. Is it true that Multnomah County fought her claim, and then lost and the judge ordered them to pay $1.15 million, and then the County said "Oh, fine, then do what you want"?

If so, that's not okay. It's not okay for the government to force someone to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in court, and then when they lose just say "Okay, never mind." And it doesn't make it okay just because Dorothy English is the anti-christ who is responsible for one of the worst laws ever passed.

Dorothy English is an arrogant, self-centered and selfish person. She shows clearly that money talks, and common sense takes a walk.

Conservatives also belive "What's mine is mine , and what's yours is mine too".

Kari, Kari, Kari:

you just laid out the difference between liberals and union democrats. you say you are for the little guy...but only until one of your big money special interests says no. We can shut down 1000s of union timber and mill jobs and ship those jobs to canada and russia. trees are still being cut in the world, even worse for the environment, how is that for the community interest??? because you and the so-called progressives pander to crazy environmentalists, not the community interest.

I am also tired of people saying, "you can't build a hog-farm, a Wal-Mart, or a sprawling subdivision on your land - but that's because it's not in the community's interest."

Because walmart, big subdivisions and hog farms are being built all over the place -- it is just who has the $$$

But on this site we call a lifelong democrat like Dorothy English an "arrogant, self-centered and selfish person." because she wants to build a few houses...that are not opposed to ANY community interest (other than a few rich snobs in the northwest hills), but the city of Portland screws her for years.

Also, they give massive tax breaks, rezone land to cram townhouses into my neighborhood...which created a mess. how is that in the community interest? I found out that the developer gives a ton of $$$ to the big democrats. So you can destroy my community and steal from Dorothy (both lifelong democrats) to help big-bucks donors to the democrat party.

I may never vote again after Measure 49.

Since when did someone with $1.15 million in property become the "little guy?"

I think that people often have the mistaken impression that "land use laws" are something that liberals invented in the 1970s. There have always been laws that govern how one can use property. Sometimes these laws are very restrictive, as in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As the industrial revolution heated up, land use laws became much less restrictive, as exploitation of resources because the driving factor behind what the "proper" use of property was. Then in the later-half of the twentieth century, as people began to believe that sprawl and resource exploitation has downsides that (perhaps) out-weighed the good sides, more restrictive land use laws were put into effect.

My point here being that land use, property rights, and the public good are always in conflict and flux; the argument, articulated or implied, that a property owner has some inherent right to do whatever they want with their property is ahistorical.

Dave3544 - That is fascism. The state controls the means of production and hands out the benefits as it deems appropriate.

I am not sure we want that to be our position. What if the state wanted to use your property to house troops, or put in a Walmart?

The question is whether or not the property owner is creating harms, and is he or she being forced to mitigate those harms. Land use planning should be an interactive process, gives and takes. Not, screw this old woman and then give big dollars to this rich developer.

The stupid thing about this whole post is that it makes us look like heartless bureaucrats…we will screw Dorothy English because…..why? Who cares, the system should have fixed Ms. English’s problem long before Measure 37 or Measure 49.

If we really want Measure 49 to pass, we would use our power to fix all of these stupid problems like Dorothy English, rather than attack her. If Dorothy was your grandmother you would really hate BlueOregon right now. She got screwed, everyone knows it, and yet we won’t fix her problem because she was the poster child for M37. We have a cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face here.

No pig farms allowed in Portland? Damn! What the hell am I going to do with all these pigs?

torridjoe... WTF? She has been seeking help for years, M7 passed after she fought for years, m37 passed 4 years later, now we are 2007. Hey dumbass, she is F$#@ing 90 something years old.

The city or county or whatever, did not to work with her until they lost in court, dragging her through litigation that was out of pure spite. Then when they lose they want to say "no harm, no foul." an not pay her for her attonrey fees.

That is WTF!

I think I just decided to vote against Measure 49, you all are crazy vicious against people who have been hurt. You need to see how you all come off with the personal attacks, it is turning people off.

Here's what I wrote on this matter back in February, when Dorothy first claimed she could develop to 1953 standards:

Well, little old lady and media star Dorothy English doesn't just want to put eight houses on her twenty acres on McNamee Road northwest of Portland. She wants to avoid all other common sense rules and regulations regarding the development of land.

So Dorothy, do you want to put in cesspools to dump sewage into the ground like they did back in 1953 when you bought the property? Do you want to use asbestors-filled building materials? There were plenty of those back in 1953 too.

Dorothy, by the way, is represented by one of the more shark-like of the land use attorneys in the Portland Metro Area, from the Schwabe gang. So I'll ask you Joe W., if Dorothy wants to use knob and tube wiring like they did in 1953 to electrify her house (and perhaps herself and her guests as well), do you think that's OK? If Dorothy wants to turn in a plat to the Multnomah County Surveyor on the back of a cocktail napkin, with a mete and bound measurement "from McNamee Road to the old outhouse out back," is that OK?

www.urbanplanningoverlord.blogspot.com

Terry:

"So does the City of Portland forget about the livability of neighbors when city building codes allows for [various annoyances]"

Yes! Thank you! While I believe that we should be looking to build up and not out, many of these developments are in ridiculous locations... and the lack of available parking is just one more symptom of the fact that Portland refuses to accept the fact that it's growing too big for its britches! At some point, Portland is going to have to accept the fact that not everyone and their mother can ride a bike to work, and we need more roads and highways.

Wow:

"The city or county or whatever"

(Love how you don't even know what entity you're talking about.)

"Then when they lose they want to say 'no harm, no foul.' an not pay her for her attonrey fees." [SIC]

Until Measure 37 passed, Dorothy didn't have a legal leg to stand on... so of course the county fought her on it! Once Measure 37 was in effect, she got her flippin' waiver. You're saying that the county should pay her retroactively for a court battle at a point in time when she wasn't entitled to her subdivisions?

Isn't that like walking into a department store during a half-off sale and saying, "Um, I bought a shirt here last month... can I have my half-off refund now?"

You may not like it that you can't build a hog-farm, a Wal-Mart, or a sprawling subdivision on your land - but that's because it's not in the community's interest.

So would you agree then that prior to passage of Measure 37 by a huge democratic majority of voters in 2004, Oregon's radical experiment in collectivized land-use planning had come to violate "the community interest" as well?

Obviously, most Oregonians now believe willfully ignoring the injurious effects that extremely prohibitive new government zoning regulations often have on existing individual property owners is neither a sustainable nor just policy. If such were otherwise the case, politicians in Salem would have said "Screw Measure 37," and repealed it outright.

Point here being that regardless what you think of HB 3540 and the Oregon Democratic Party press release posing as Measure 49 ballot language, none of the reforms and changes to statewide land-use planning contemplated in Measures 7 or 37 (or for that matter in the "fix" now preferred by the ruling party) were ever embraced by ardent supporters of the old planning system.

If any group has over time fallen afoul and out of step with "the community interest," it is the intolerant (but powerful) few who for years have stood inflexibly against reforming an increasingly unpopular system. And without a doubt, most in that vocal minority would unquestionably characterize themselves as "progressive."

Kari writes: But here we are - Multnomah County said, "OK, go ahead and build" and she says "No, I want the cash instead".

I'd like some clarification on the facts of this case. My understanding is that Dorothy English filed her M37 claim soon after the initiative passed. Multnomah County denied her claim (I don't know on what grounds), and she then went to court to argue that her claim was in fact valid. The judge ruled in her favor, said the claim was valid, and ordered the County to pay $1.15 million for the lost value of the land. At that point, the County said "Never mind, we'll just waive the regulations."

Can anyone verify that my description is correct?

If it is, my problem is that it puts the government in an incredibly powerful negotiating position. They can deny every claim, and if they lose in court, they can just waive the regulations and avoid any payouts. This is the definition of "governmental abuse of power."

I'm confident that Oregon judges will sort this out. But don't be surprised if they rule that the government must declare in the 6-month window whether they will waive the regulations or not. If they choose not to, should they really be allowed to change their minds later, after they lose? Is that progressive?

it also seems reasonable that the government has the right to a determination of which claims are legitimate, or not. just because someone, e.g. dorothy english, files a claim, it doesn't automatically follow that the claim qualifies for compensation, simply on the basis of it having been filed.

in this case, the claim did qualify. but i don't think that means that the governing body didn't have the right to have that determined legally.

The government body has the option, instead of paying compensation, to modify, remove or not apply the restriction instead--which is what Multno did.

Looking back at your citation of the law, it does seem to contemplate an initial decision (waive the regs, pay compensation, or deny the claim) followed by the option of waiving the regs in lieu of compensation if the government loses. Poorly conceived, for sure. In most cases, the counties involved have waived the regulations up front, not after going to court, so I can also understand why Dorothy English felt persecuted.

Trishka's point is a good one, that there needs to be a way to determine whether a claim is legitimate. Does anyone know if M49 clarifies this process at all?

I can't claim to be an expert here (and have been accused of being a fascist!), but I believe the law gave counties six months to rule on the claims, but there was such an initial rush of claims, that the six month rule became untenable. I thought there was a court ruling extending the timeline, given the undue burden it placed on counties, which, up to that point, had no mechanism for evaluating the whether or not to apply land use laws, and if not, how much to pay.

The law always gave counties the option to waive land use laws in lieu of payment. I remember this specifically because supporters of M37 argued that it wouldn't cost counties a dime, because they could just waive the land use laws.

The short six month time line was not an accident. Remember, the supporters of M37 wanted to give the government no time to decide if a claim was legit. They wanted payment for what the claimed or the ability to do whatever with their land.

If the Attorney General of Oregon hadn't dreamed up the completely bogus "transferability" issue, which may take years to be thrown out, slowly wandering through our pondorous, politics ridden, close-to-ridiculous, court system, Mrs. English could simply have gifted her property to her children, together with all the rights conferred by Measure 37, supposedly only upon her. And that would be the end of it.

But, since this admittedly ingenious, but totally malicious roadblock has made this simple, highly traditional, course of action impossible, at least temporarily, say for five, ten years or twenty years--whatever--and since it probably was also not possible for a 95 year old woman to borrow the necessary money to construct eight houses from lenders who were fully cognisant of the fact that, were she to die during construction, their collateral would go "poof," or be in 1000 Fiends limbo, possibly forever. This being the case, if Multnomah County also jerked her around during the allowed 180 days, again taking full advantage of her age and her mucho difficult situation, (as they had already done habitually and quite successfully for at least several decades--even aided by a Governor's veto of bipartisan legislation passed by the Legislature, specifically to help her), then I would say that the sympathies of all reasonably sane and intelligent people should be entirely with Mrs. English--no matter what seemingly nasty tactics she may be forced to adopt. Apropriately, the Roman historian Plutarch remarked, "The best defense against a knave is knavery." So it may well be that the only way she can protect the interests of her heirs is to file this lawsuit, because even if she dies,most probably,this kind of lawsuit, for malicious damages, essentially against the incorrigible zealots within the Multnomah County Government, would continue in spite of her passing to a just conclusion, free of any idiotic "transferability" issue, thus potentially awarding her children with their rightful inheritance.
So I say, "Right On, Dorothy!" Give those 39 percenters exactly what they deserve. Too bad we can't do more to weed them out of their government jobs altogether, so that these heartless bureaucrats might have to depend upon personal investments, such as real estate--like the rest of us--rather than PERS. Then they might understand the value of reasonable property rights in the face of the difficulties of sensible life planning.

Yo "Torrid Joe,"

A couple of questions for you, Joe:

  1) Might not another lawyer who happened to be Oregon's Attorney General have interpreted Measure 37 differently, and the "transferability" issue not come up at all--at least from the State. (even though it might have arrisen from a possible lawsuit filed by the 1000 Fiends?)

   2) Might not another Oregon Governor, say a Republican like the last two who ran and lost, have fired Hardy Meyer, or somehow forced a change in the "interpretation," arguing that the will of the people was paramount, and to suggest that those who voted for Measure 37 did not mean to imply that the rights granted were like all other property rights, i.e. transferable, sellable, etc., rather than VIRTUALLY WORTHLESS, as they are without transferability, was idiotic?

   3) Might it not come to pass, somewhere down the road, that if Measure 49 goes down in flames, (as I believe it should), that eventually a court decision--God only knows how high and after how many years--will reject Atty. General Meyer's interpretion.  Thus, we ought not to assume. at least for the sake of blogging arguments, that "transferability" is either permanently illegal or permanently impossible, (even though the State is free to act as if it is, until overruled by the courts.)

Please do me the courtesy of answering these three questions "yes" or "no," and afterwards please give the comments/rebuttals etc. you wish to make. I find many of these discussions frustrating because so many people are intent only on framing questions, never answering any from others, i.e. merely "discussing" in ways that help their case, period. I would be more than willing to answer similar questions you might ask me with a "yes" or a "no," then make my own comments afterwards.
with best wishes Geoff

WOW said: "That is fascism. The state controls the means of production and hands out the benefits as it deems appropriate." Actually, that's communism.

Fascism is, as FDR once said, "ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

This is quite similar to what we have seen the Bush Administration try to do over the last six years: privatize government.

Thanks Joe, here are my comments on your comments:

The fact that three lawyers agree on something means little to me. I am not a lawyer and could not possibly have a lower opinion of our judicial system than I do--considering it merely an extremely slow extension of our political system--with standards quite possibly even less honest than politics. I seriously doubt that somewhere one could not find a lawyer (or judge) who would be willing to argue that black is white. How things come out in the end is entirely political and, in truth, never really settled for good. We live in a world of flux.

 You may be right that the Governor cannot control what the Attorney General does, but the Legislature easily could have resolved the "transferability" issue in a stroke and done what 61% of the people clearly wanted.  They have the power and it would not be "judicial activism", but rather "politics."  If Dan Clem had not beaten Billy Dalto in Salem in the last election there would be no Measure 49, and, wonder of wonders, there might even have been true bipartisan legislation aimed at a reasonable balance between property rights and the public interest, thus making Oregon reasonably similar to other parts of the planet, rather than a thoroughly polarized spectacle and an oddity.  Thanks Dan, for making another Democrat (me) into a Republican.

Finally, I find your comments on transferability depressing but possibly right. It is depressing that the fight for reasonable property rights can be successfully stalled and thus defeated indefinitely (at least within the normal span of individual human life) even if it is clear that these are the wishes of the vast majority of members of a so-called "democratic" society, and it is the way most people read the U.S. Constitution. It may well be impossible to do anything in our society, if one is opposed by an army of amoral lawyers.