Mat-Su Proposition 1
Update: Anti-Property Rights Advocate Len Barson of the Washington State Nature Conservancy gave anti-Prop 1 group $1,665, he was also instrumental in derailing a similar Washington State property rights initiative in 2006, as were many of the others listed below, and curiously but not surprizingly, the anti I-933 campaign used similar wording in their propaganda: "But initiative opponents say I-933 is so vague and poorly worded that enterprising landowners could seek waivers allowing them to do almost anything on their property." Source: Seattle PI
Update: $12,000 contributor Cynthia Wayburns parents were instrumental in locking up 100 million acres of Alaska with their support and promotion of ANILCA.
Locking up Alaska land must run in the family.
Prop 1 Proponents had more financial support from Mat-Su than did opponents..
See what tons of OUTSIDE money can buy you?
$41,000 Va. Nature Conservancy
$25,000 The Partnership Project, Inc. (Radical DC Environmental Group)
$12,000 Cynthia Wayburn (radical environmentalist Seattle millionaire)
$10,000 Cook Inlet Region
$5,000 Douglas Walker (location unknown)
$5,000 Alaska Center for the Environment (Radical Environmental Group)
$5,000 Paul Brainerd (Radical environmentalist Seattle billionaire)
$1,665 Len Barson (Washington State TNC)
posted by Editor @ 5:47 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
the opponents of prop 1 are despicable. They had better not EVER bring up "Outside" influences on Alaska elections again, or this will smack them right back in the face..
Disgusted..
I am perplexed as to why so much Outside money was spent fighting an issue thousands of miles away. I think that Prop 1 would have passed if there was no Outside cash. I also think you should have taken the gloves off fighting these folks. They stooped to making allegations that this will cost taxpayers when Oregon's Prop 37 has not cost that state a penny. The next time you (hopefully) try this you should use actual examples of how government has ruined lives by passing high handed land use laws. Given the current disregard for the property rights enshrined in Constitutions (5th Amendment of the US and Article 10 of the Alaska Constitution) examples of this should be easy to find and document. The holy grail would be to find an example of how a residential property was rezoned and the homeowner forced to raze his home.
Good luck in the future and please don't let a blatantly fixed outcome like this stop you from trying again.
Just in the interest of accuracy, does anyone care that CIRI is the largest land owner in the Valley? Or that the Nature Conservancy has over 3000 Alaska members, including more than 600 in the Valley? How about Alaska Center for the Environment's Valley members? How about the fact that the Partnership Project is actually a group of organizations that collectively have thousands of Alaska and valley members? How is this "Outside Money"?
Ok, how about this one...even if you remove all of the national organizations with Valley members and just look at private donors in the valley, they had more donors than you did.
And by the way, this certainly wasn't a "blatantly fixed outcome". More of their people got out and voted. 20% voter turnout in this country is an obscenity. If we ever actually want to pass laws to protect people, we probably ought to do a little more organizing and a little less screaming about Outside Money.
In furthur interest in accuracy, many of the prop 1 opponents were apoplectic over the "outside" money used to try to defeat the cruise ship ballot. Their ranting and raving, with the aid of the mainstream media helped them defeat it by focusing on funding by industry HQ in BC..
continued.. so the point is, outside money is OK, when it serves their purpose. But it still does not make it right.
To the third "Anonymous" poster:
If you wish to talk about accuracy, please explain how the opposition's campaign claim that this was going to cost taxpayers can be substantiated. The one place this has passed, in Oregon, not a single claim has been paid since it was passed twice (once in 2000 and once in 2004). Since the voters heard this again and again they were mislead. Since Prop 1 supporters played fair and did not have the exorbinent Outside support. Add the numbers up from Outside based groups contributed $83,000 compared that to Alaska based groups paltry $15,000. Even if the Alaska based groups received all their money from in state, this is a huge disparity.
I really do not comprehend your aversion to property rights. I served in the Army in Berlin, Germany in the early 1980's and got a chance to visit East Germany. The difference in air and water quality was shocking. East Germany, a communist country has no property rights as the government owns all the land. West Germany with much land in private ownership was much cleaner.
With this experience and many more over the years I became a believer in the fact that freedom works. It brings prosperity and, yes, even a cleaner environment.
I am dismayed with how the current local goverments of Southcentral Alaska do not cherish freedom nearly as much as I do. For instance a proposed new land use law here in the Muni where I live (as part of the Title 21 rewrite), makes it a crime to rebuild my house if it is damaged by fire or other catastrophe sufficiently to require more than 50% of the structure's assessed value to rebuild. Do you think this law is fair? Would you like this to happen to you? You would be stuck without a home and with a substantial amount of mortagage left to pay off. Prop 1 would have either forced the government to allow you to rebuild your house or to pay off the balance the insurance and demolition costs. Do you really support laws that put people in this type of situation?
Dan -
You have a problem with outside money. Ok. I have a problem with having to raise that much money to fight bad laws that don't do what they claim to do. I also have a problem with trying to import bad laws from other states that no longer even want them themselves.
Oregon spends several million dollars a year just on administration of Measure 37 claims - the state budget is all public record so check it out.
Also, yes, Oregon has in fact started paying out claims. First a couple files a claim so they can build a house on a cliff overlooking the town. The town objected and agreed to pay them not to build. So what does the couple do next....why file a claim to get paid to not build a HOTEL on the same property. Also a matter of public record - look it up.
As far as Oregon making payments is concerned, please keep in mind that there is a time frame on claims and decisions long enough that most claims filed haven't been settled one way or another. Over 3500 in fact are yet to be settled. Also public record.
It would be very unwise to think that I have some aversion to property rights. That is frankly stupid to even say...I don't know anyone who has a problem with private property rights. What I and a lot of other people have a problem with is having tell people "Hey, its ok, you don't really have to follow the laws passed through democratic process" under threat of lawsuit. We have a HUGE problem with people not thinking that they have any responsibility to their neighbors or community as well. If you want to call me a communist for thinking that, go right ahead. I'm actually a Republican, but oh well - call me whatever you like if it makes you feel better.
Has anyone stopped to ask why some of these laws get passed in the first place? Do you really think that it is because the Borough Assembly members get off on telling other people what to do, or that they want "Unrestricted absolute control over you"? Is it really evil to tell someone not to put their septic tank so close to the edge of their property that it poisons their neighbor's drinking water? (That happened to me, by the way.) Is it really so terrible to tell someone that if you have built in an erosion prone area you have to tell potential buyers about the risk of their new house falling into the river in a few years?
Are there some really idiotic land use laws in the Borough? Oh yes. Are there some people making decisions who have no business ordering lunch for themselves - much less setting policy for the entire borough? Again yes. Was Prop. 1 the solution to that problem? No.
Dan,
Opponents of Private Property Protection are all central planning fans despite the long historical failure of the ideology. Environmentalists (and the current boro administration) are best characterized by socialist idealogy, for in the real world only government control of the means of production can achieve their objectives. This means private property must be controlled for their use and plans regardless of Constitutional prohibitions. I've no plans to "recraft" the language or submit the petition again. It survived an Oregon Supreme Court Challenge (meaning it was extremely well written), but the public voted it down here. I'll continue my watch, and report to the public what I see. It's up to them (including you) to do something about it. I'm unfazed by the result.
If anyone committed voter fraud, it was opponents of Private Property Protection. They started by using the same name as the Mat Su Taxpayers Assn, (known as a false name). After using glossy brochures liberally coated with deliberate falsehoods (such as the statement that $17B in lawsuits had been filed, known in Webster’s as lies), they started using false names like Jeff Underhill (known as lies) to send e-mails, then used government buildings and equipment (photos available on this website) in violation of federal and state law (known as crimes), then resorted to copying the card format we used (known as pathetic). So far the only thing missing was gangs of KGB thugs to beat up students in favor of liberty as was used in the Ukraine.
The opponents of Private Property Propection waged a classic Soviet style disinformation campaign. The lefties received gobs (10 to 1 advantage overall) of outside money to create confusion, but the issue was so simple it could be boiled down to just 12 words" nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." (5th Amendment) Prop 1 merely put this into law. In all their flyers, ads and website data, they NEVER EVEN PUT A LINK TO THE ACTUAL TEXT because voters might have actually read it. There were only two places to find it; at taxcap.org and the borough website. That the majority of voters didn't read the initiative is self evident. Given the circumstances, opponents of private property protection would likely have voted against the 5th Amendment itself.
Preliminary results of the MatSu election showed that 3073 voters voted to retain control of their private property, 7658 voted to give control of their property to Boro Manager John Duffy, and 41,800 registered voters found the task of voting too difficult to even attempt. The boro will continue to take value from property owners for public use and benefit, and owners will continue to receive no compensation.
2600 registered voters signed the Private Property Protection Initiative, and 4400 voters signed the Taxcap. This is a small but vocal group? What would you call the "Friends" of Mat Su besides the Enemies of Alaskans? The "small but vocal group" howl about the petitioners is hogwash! To put this in perspective, less than 10% of Americans actively fought in the American Revolution, but everyone benefited, even those who opposed liberty from England! So it is here, and will always be.
Anyone who says they can tell what the
41,800 other people who didn't vote were thinking is very foolish. The initiative was the result of watching five years of public testimony and seeing the borough take actual value from private property owners for public benefit. I, and hundreds like me, have been speaking to the borough assembly on this and other subjects since 2001. Not only do they refuse to listen, they've actively disregarded the public's voice expressed in open election. To whit; they proposed to zone the entire core area over majority objection; they sent the "Y" Comp plan to the borough despite a 146-59 vote in opposition, they proposed to give the borough a waiver to a SPUD at Pt Mac not available to a private company to sell gravel to Anchorage (appealed and the borough lost), they passed a law imposing a sales tax on the transfer of property that was illegal on it's face, and the list goes on.
The Constitution and it's amendments were written to protect the people from government. It doesn't say the government has to pay compensation only when it feels like it, or only when convenient, or only when cheap. It says to pay just compensation for property taken for public use. Period.
The US Supreme Court further expanded this to mean private property can be taken from one individual and given to another if he promises the public BENEFIT of paying more taxes. (Kelo vs New London) Tough for opponents that someone points out the facts.
What do opponents of private property plan to do to your property that would have cost you so much value? Why would they oppose the ownership (meaning control of property for your own benefit, rather than for the public's benefit) of private property and the 5th amendment?
Prop 1 would have protected you from unreasonable government intervention on your private property, by requiring them to pay you for value taken from you for public use or benefit. Simple. All the screeching from the left and outside money was merely to confuse voters.
“This is the issue of this election: Whether we
believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ... Plutarch warned, ‘The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.’ The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.” —Ronald Reagan
We chose oppression.
Cheers to All,
Penny Nixon, Chair
Mat-Su Taxpayers Association
This has been an interesting blog! I noticed most those who state something favorable about prop 1 are willing to identify themselves. Those stating something opposed to prop 1 are posting anonymous. Why is that? You won! The prop was defeated. Why stand afraid to identify? Very curious! I identify myself and I voted for the proposition, so add my name to those willing to stand and be counted for the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution and prop 1. I, personally don't know why there was so much opposition to what amounted to a restatement of existing law at the borough level making them accountable for damaging the value of a person's property. This is equivalent to opposing the Privacy Act because it holds government beaurocrats accountable when they violate the 4th amendment and "seize" private information in the course of their duties and then fail to protect that information from abuse or unwarrented disclosure. Just a couple of thoughts. :)
Jim,
Opponents of liberty never reveal their true identities, for that would expose them for the hypocrites they are. They are not volunteering THEIR property for government control, only YOUR property. They think because they are currently in the political driving seat, the laws will not apply to them since they are "connected". This was the mentality of many Germans until the Jews were gone and the Gestapo started coming for ordinary Germans... And so it is here.
Fraternally,
Penny Nixon
Penny, thank you for your well thought out response to my post. Thank you and Dennis for continuing to promote the concept of Freedom, which seems to have few champions, especially here in the Municipality of Anchorage. It is patently obvious to me that the petition failed due to the vast misinformation campaign waged using Outside money. This was ironically confirmed by Ms Anonymous when she (he?) asked "Is it really evil to tell someone not to put their septic tank so close to the edge of their property that it poisons their neighbor's drinking water?" Had she actually read the proposition she would have seen the passage
Subsection (1) of this act shall not apply to land use regulations:
(B) Restricting or prohibiting activities for the protection of public health and safety, such as fire and building codes, health and sanitation regulations
Apparently it was too much work to read the actual language of the proposition, which she could have done in less than the time it took to compose her posts.
I think the level of voter irresponsibility displayed by Ms Anonymous is a bad omen for the future of our republic. If she is reading this, (which I doubt, since her response to my post showed that she did not read it in its entirety), I do not critize her for voting against the Proposition, since that is her right. My main critisism of her is that, by not even reading the language of the proposition, she neglected the most basic responsibity of being a voter in this republic. I think I can be fairly certain that many other individuals who voted against prop 1 also did not bother to read it prior to voting, simply because she felt strongly enough about it to spend time writing on a blog opposing it and most other oppostion voters did not (and thus probably put less effort into research than she did). When so many voters neglect their responsibility like this, the side which contributes the most money (especially by a wide margin like this election) almost always wins, no matter how detrimental their desired results will be for those voters.
Sorry about the multiple comments, but the last time I tried, my whole post was deleted, so if I lose a portion of this post, the rest of it will still be posted.
I am just sorry that this proposition had to be placed on the ballot in the first place. Property rights were protected by the Constitution and all your proposition tried to do was to get the Borough government to honor the committments required of them under the Constitution.
I am discovering more and more what Penny said in his response to Jim is true. People champion many ordinances thinking they will not be subject to them. Often, in the case of our elected representatives, they are correct. Of course, those of us who are vocal in our opposition to such measures are rarely immune from them. This is one of the many reasons why our founding fathers placed a great emphasis on strictly limited government. When power is concentrated in the hands of a few select individuals, the likelyhood of corruption of these individuals increases directly with the amount of power given to them. This is human nature. When a few individuals can ruin your life or make you wildly prosperous on a whim (for example the Portland Metro growth boundary line commission), the incentives for exerting influence on these individuals is very great.
This does not even have to have sinister connotations to be true. Say for instance a developer has invested most of his money and taken substantial loans (perhaps using his home as collateral) to purchase a piece of land to build houses on. Then say a group of neighbors believe that their homes should be the only ones in the area and they pressure the local city planners to rezone the area to "Open Space". If this occurs the land purchased by the developer will lose a substantial portion of its value (after all, who wants to buy land and pay taxes on it and be unable to do anything with it) and he will likely lose his job and his family's home. Suddenly an otherwise honest and honorable man is placed in a very bad situation. A couple of substantial gifts to a few key planners and he gets to keep his home and his job.
Although this scenario is something I made up, it is likely that similar events occur often around the country.
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