[Grovenet] Future of Downtown Forest Grove (WAS: Fwd: LandUse Update August 16th)

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Bob, I do not have a better answer to problems that M7 and M37 exposed in
the land use laws than M37. It's why  I supported it.  
 
If I had a better answer I'd be writing initiatives or down in Salem
pounding on legislator's doors. 
 
I opposed  M7 in 2000, not because I disagreed with the concept that we have
a right to acquire personal wealth, but because I don't like stepping in
with initiatives to trump the state legislature. We pay those men and women
to go to Salem and develop answers  to these issues.  
 
When M7 failed in a technical issue, thanks to Mr. Sizemore's sloppy
drafting, it gave the opponents both the information and the time to react
with a better plan. They knew that the majority of Oregonians approved the
concept and  the technical failure kept M7 from becoming law so nothing was
changed in 2000. It was a huge opportunity. 
 
Neither the legislature or the citizens groups opposing M7 came up with  a
single answer for the people of Oregon. They seem to have ignored the issue
for four years. While that was going on, the proponents of M7 created M37
which addressed the problems with M7 and which offered solutions to other
concerns, particularly the fact that M7 would have required the counties to
issue  permits allowing building of all  the legitimate claims regardless of
their impact. M37 didn't require that the counties allow people to build. It
provided the option of financial reimbursement for their loss at the
discretion of the county in order to protect our structure of land  use. 
 
M37 subsequently passed with an even larger majority than M7 had four years
earlier. 
 
I'm not happy to see us faced with the option of either finding cash to
reimburse people for their loss or allowing a lot of building that would not
have been permitted otherwise, but that's what I, and the rest of Oregon's
voters, were faced with in 2004. M7 and M37 exposed a huge weakness  in the
original law passed in the 1970's. Maybe people didn't care about the impact
on the minority then, or the minority didn't have a strong enough  voice to
be heard over the din of self-congratulations  about the wonderful new law. 
 
They've been heard now. I don't think it's possible to set back the clock
and pretend the people injured by the law don't exist. The opponents of M37
gave us voters a choice: pretend the injured people are all dishonest bums
or enact M37. 
 
I think the answer to that was  pretty clear. 
 
Ron D'Eau Claire 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Bob Browning
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 9:10 AM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Future of Downtown Forest Grove (WAS: Fwd: LandUse
Update August 16th)



Ron - I agree with your conclusion. I just don't agree with you and a number
of other Oregonians solution, since I think it represents the same-o, same-o
solutions of the past that SB100 and state wide planning were intended to
address!!

bob "oh, the humanity!!" browning

Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:


<snip> In this case, I believe that trying

to roll the calendar back to the 1970's, or even back to 2003, is likely to

create even more serious problems.  



Ron D'Eau Claire