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Note: This is part of a series. Nice column today by the Seattle P-I‘s Joel Connelly on the astroturfing of the Washington state initiative process—with a special look at I-933, a stealth attack designed to undermine, oh, pretty much any action taken by state or local government: The Washington State Farm Bureau is the official sponsor of I-933. But money to pay signature gatherers, $200,000 at last count, has come...

Note: This is part of a series. When lawyers read Initiative 933’s definition of “property,” they tend to fall out of their chairs in astonishment. That’s because, according to its own definition, I-933 will apply to “all real and personal property protected by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 16 of the Washington Constitution owned by a non-governmental entity…” The lay person may read:...

Note: This is part of a series. Oddly parallel news articles this week: one from Oregon, where Measure 37 land-use is currently the law; and one from Washington, where Initiative 933 would do even more to reduce community input into land-use decisions. On Maury Island, Washington a group of residents is trying to stop a gravel and sand mine from starting operations, which will include barge traffic near homes. The community...

Note: This is part of a series. Last week, I wrote about the torrent of look-alike initiatives in the Northwest—933 in Washington; 154 in Montana; and “This House is My Home” in Idaho—and I pointed out their eerie similarity to one another. All three Northwest property initiatives lead off with booming rhetoric about abuses of eminent domain. In reality, however, the initiatives are about an entirely different issue (one that...

Note: This is part of a series. Here’s how Measure 37—the progenitor of a new wave of more aggressive initiatives, such as I-933 in Washington—is affecting Oregon’s farm economy. In windswept northeastern Oregon, the farmers of rural Union County are feeling the sting of Measure 37. A landowner-turned-speculator there recently made a claim to subdivide more than 1,400 acres of rural land into hundreds of 5-acre buildable lots. Farmers nearby...

Note: This is part of a series. I’ve been writing a lot about Washington’s I-933 lately; here’s what’s happening in the rest of Cascadia. California: Napa County voters handily defeated Measure A, another cookie-cutter “pay-or-waive” initiative. Idaho: Proponents just announced that they have enough signatures to put “This House Is My Home” on the ballot in November. A silly ballot title, yes, but the initiative is much better written than,...

In my ongoing analysis of Initiative 933, another story from fast-growing Kitsap County. Today’s question: should a community have a say over where heavy industry belongs?(Also see the full series of posts.) The Kitsap County Association of Realtors is opposing the “industrialization of Hood Canal.” The Kitsap Sun reports that the realtors are likely motivated by a large-scale gravel mining and shipping operation under consideration. As might be expected, they...

Note: This is part of a series. When Measure 37 passed in Oregon, it triggered an avalanche of imitation. It sparked I-933 in Washington, a ballot measure that would fundamentally re-define how property uses can be regulated. Because the authors of I-933 studied Oregon’s law, it’s often thought that I-933 is simply an Evergreen State version of 37. But that’s not right. The truth is that I-933 is not a clone of 37 so much as it’s a steroid-pumped version...

Here at Sightline, we’re enamored of good visuals–especially maps that tell stories. So I was pleased to find a terrific interactive map published by Save Our Wild Salmon. Scrolling across features in the Columbia-Snake River basin, users learn the story of salmon conservation. I’m not just talking about pop-up windows that describe the dams and wilderness areas (it has those too). I’m talking about clickable icons that activate movie clips....

Note: This is part of a series. Washington’s Initiative 933. Montana’s Initiative 154. Idaho’s “Property Rights Protection.” All three 2006 ballot initiatives are modeled on Oregon’s Measure 37—a prototype pay-or-waive scheme aimed to eliminate most land-use laws. Last week, I wrote about claims made in Oregon under Measure 37. The claims are often pricey, sometimes absurdly so, and governments simply waive land-use restrictions for claimants because there’s no (taxpayer) money...