County Council woman, Kathy Kershner, not long after a discussion of pirating taxes earmarked by voters for the protection of farmland to feed the growth beast, recently announced, at the conclusion of a fruitless effort to permanently end further subdivision of the watershed surrounding Lake Whatcom, that she didn't support reducing any landowner's property value without compensation.Huh!
Every time these folks increase the land supply for residential development they effectively reduce the future value of every current homeowner's holding in the county. Their help inflating the local real estate bubble, and abetting the overbuilding in rural areas, has certainly created an oversupply situation that exacerbates the decline in home values.
And every time they stretch an urban growth area into resource lands strategically purchased in anticipation of the same, they enrich someone with little or no thought of even requiring the beneficiaries of all this largess not burden the public for turning their empty land into fields of gold.
While the idea of taxing these windfalls to reduce the tax burden on an apparently inconsequential public seems anathema to the representatives of the landed gentry, certainly they can't, with a straight face, be suggesting we create still more.
No, Kathy's a graduate of that divinity school that believes property rights are god given, and that we, the un-landed gentry, must never interfere in the holy process of converting the common wealth to their personal satisfaction.
And somehow, if occasionally we should, certainly the sons of god, our founders, must have provided for such untoward outcomes in that great secular bible; it must be a "taking" and the public must atone for the sin. Unfortunately, the faithful are presently in the majority.
Kathy has an interesting way of laying it out there -- not always the way she thinks it will be received. We had the famous faux pas, the distinction without a difference between protecting the lake and protecting our drinking water supply. To those who call it their reservoir, Kershner complained, "this phrase serves as a fear tactic and stops a truthful discussion about what we really need to do to protect our Lake's health."
So, not even facing up to the dilemma of dealing with residential development that should never have occurred, but rather just contemplating the prospect of preventing more of the same; charged by the State of Washington with fixing the problem, Kershner and that crowd's first concern seems to be how to compensate the landed gentry for the anticipated profits that would have resulted from their god given right to destroy the watershed.
The real rub for these true believers, what seems entertainingly ironic to the ungrounded observer listening to their prayers for due process, is the fact that way back in 1926, the U.S. Supreme Court held that zoning based on comprehensive planning was a proper exercise of a state’s power to regulate the use of private property to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community.
The court found that the public good is more important than the private property rights of individuals who own property. The power is referred to in law as the “police power" that is, the power of states to exercise reasonable control over people and property within their jurisdiction in the interest of the community’s security, health, safety, morals, and welfare.
What must really gall the right-wingers who usually stand tall on their soap boxes to sputter and orate on "states rights" is that this police power is accepted as one of the powers reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution, and cities and counties are creatures of the states.
What seems to eternally frustrate the landed gentry with their blind faith in the sanctity of property rights, even as they would manipulate the county government, is counties are not only creatures of the state, but they must follow state law. And recent history is the story of their public embarrassment in the state's courts as they are unwound from their twisted interpretation of the laws.
No, what the landed gentry are attempting to do here is create new property rights for which the public will subsequently be forced to compensate them. Put plainly, Kershner, Crawford, Nelson, and probably Knutzen, would like to see subdivision of the watershed proceed. Then, when the county and city have to solve the problem of residential development around the lake, the lucky beneficiaries of this largess will have something to sell.
If these landowners are not allowed to increase the number of residences possible for them to build, they can only sell the development rights they have at present. What policy would be in the best interest of the public seems obvious.
Kathy does like to go on though about "takings." If she were to learn a bit more, she would drop that argument. It is long established that only regulations that so restrict the use of property as to leave really no use to its owner amount to a taking for which payment of just compensation is required. To be able to build one house, as opposed to ten, hardly leaves one with no use.
And under the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, which allows the exercise of eminent domain for a public purpose, even those who might not care if they disaffect the public drinking water supply can be prevented from the same.
I'm sorry, but how much sympathy must we marshall for "investors" unable to foresee the impact of their dreams of development on the public water supply? Can we ignore the moral hazard of compensating speculators, active or passive, who failed to exercise due diligence and bet wrong on the state exercising its police power to protect the public interest?
Or have they simply shown blind faith in their ability to buy local elections and perpetuate business as usual ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
For example, Nick Kaiser, a local conservative politico who manages Muslim investments particularly fond of real estate, who also is Brett Bonner's financial patron, contributed $20,000 to Kershner's campaign; approximately half her contributions.
So egregious was the appearance of this unseemly effort to buy Kershner a seat on the council that the state legislature found it necessary to place limits on campaign contributions. "I think they should name the bill after me," Kershner quipped.
Add her contributions from others in the development community and you have a council member almost as captured as Sam Crawford, a paid lobbyist for the building industry. Few are as candid as Barbara Brenner, perhaps the most independent member of the council, who has admitted, "that's the one area of the county that I've supported downzoning."
Crawford doesn't want to extend the prohibition on new subdivisions or construction in the watershed around the reservoir. Crawford belittles the threat, telling us many of the potential homes will never be built because of the high cost of the roads needed.
But I'll bet that won't stop anyone from demanding top dollar for any development rights he succeeds in creating. Another case where, to err is human; but to benefit from one's error is, indeed, divine.
Not unlike our national scandal, where the fat cats of finance captured their would be regulators, and raided the public treasury; here we go again, back to the old days and the old ways, with the landed gentry locally setting things up for another score.
So how will we save Lake Whatcom without breaking the taxpayers and water users? Who will say no, no more, to the landed gentry? Who will stop this death by a thousand cuts: road cuts and cutting the forest canopy around the reservoir? To those on the county council, we ask, what's the plan?
How we will compensate the few who feel a divine right to profit is not even an interesting question. They can seek their reward in heaven.
