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September 04, 2006

Lessons of Measures 5 and 37

Yesterday's Register Guard report on Measure 37 (requiring just compensation for regulatory takings) brings out two issues that are important for both opponents and proponents to understand – and both are lessons that should have been learned following the passage of Measure 5 (the property tax cut and cap). First, knowledge of a measure's financial backers can shed light on the outcome one can expect if it passes. And second, failure to address reasonable problems harming everyday people can result in a backlash that brings negative effects along with it.

Just as with Measure 5, voters supported Measure 37 because it would help everyday Oregonians - and it is helping them. And no surprise, it is also helping the financial backers of both measures, who invested tens of thousands of dollars in some cases and, after passage, took steps to benefit from the measures to a degree far surpassing their original "investment." In other words, the voters envisioned a populist result and, while the measures lived up to that promise, they also served up the unintended consequence of making some wealthy people even more wealthy while violating the intentions of Oregonians who demonstrably support land use planning and progressive taxation.

Of the three contributors-turned-claimants [to Measure 37] in Lane County, Veneta businessman Gregory Demers gave the most - $82,000 - to the pro-37 campaign, donating $57,000 under his own name and the rest through two of his many business entities, ATR Services Inc. and Frontier Resources LLC. …In Lane County, Demers is connected to three claims that, taken together, assert a reduced market value totaling $7.4 million.

The second similarity between the two measures is the fact that opponents have acknowledged the need but done nothing to address it, allowed everyday Oregonians to suffer intolerable costs and losses, fought vigorously against the only solution offered to voters using over-the-top "sky is falling" campaign rhetoric (i.e., you could have a pig farm go in next door), and only after the measure has passed expressed any sympathy with the beleaguered citizens who took matters into their own hands because their elected representatives would not address the problem.

Many of the claims involve individual landowners - some now elderly - who purchased property before statewide land use regulations went into effect in the early 1970s, with the intention of eventually creating homesites for their children or selling parcels to support themselves in retirement.

Even longtime land use watchdog groups such as 1000 Friends of Oregon express empathy for people who have filed Measure 37 claims for those reasons.
"We support an adequately funded system of compensation for property owners who have experienced individual hardship in the application of our state's land-use regulations," one of 1000 Friends of Oregon's position statements says.

Lauri Segel - formerly with 1000 Friends and now part of the nonprofit Goal One Coalition, which provides legal and research assistance to groups working on development and environmental issues, [said] when it comes to people realizing their lifelong dream of settling their children on the family property … "I personally think there's nothing wrong with that."

Citizens were complaining about regulatory takings long before Measure 37 passed. In fact, when signatures were being gathered for Measure 7, the original regulatory takings constitutional amendment, land use planning proponents had a golden opportunity. They could have recognized that we had a serious problem in Oregon with the loss of property rights. They could have lobbied the Legislature to do something about it. And by doing something about it, the pressure for change could have been sufficiently relieved to avoid the passage Measure 37 when Measure 7 was thrown out by the Oregon Supreme Court. But they didn't do it. Just like they didn't deal with property tax relief despite ample evidence that the public was increasingly inflamed over property taxes. To express sympathy now is too little, too late.

Posted by Becky at September 4, 2006 08:50 AM