The curious case of the Clackamas claimant
February 9th, 2007
There’s a lot of briar patch talk going on among Measure 37 proponents these days. After all, don’t they realize that Senate Bill 505 gives them MORE rights, such as waiver transferability and fast-track development, in exchange for, um, nothing?
The problem is that Oregonians in Action are very good at working the media:
Dawn Dutton said she has devoted two years to “the meetings, the paperwork, the checks, the fees” to file a claim and go through Clackamas County’s development process. She said she spent $40,000 extra for utilities and roads for a trio of homes, which would be wasted if she could build only the one that’s already under construction. [link]
Notice how OIA always successfully finds female claimants? It’s kinda strange, not least in that it is actually “Kenneth and Dawn Dutton” who are the claimants. But OIA is exceptional at the small details of media manipulation to make their appeals as sympathetic as possible.
Oh, and is it really just a “trio of homes”? At least according to their claim, they wanted “to subdivide their 15.78-acre property into one-acre lots and to develop a dwelling on each lot” [link]. Of course, Laura Oppenheimer’s reporting on M37 always leaves something to be desired.
[You would think that Mrs. Dutton would be pleased with SB 505, because it allows them to transfer that single family home they are developing under M37 to someone else. As it is, how can they sell it to someone else as that new owner would immediately be in violation of land use regulations. (Remember, M37 does not transfer waivers.) And how could that new owner get insurance? Or get a mortgage? Perhaps they haven’t yet realized that all the work on those roads and paperwork will be for naught anyway?]
1000 Friends of Oregon really thought that SB 505 would sweep away the bulk of little old granny claims and leave just the big ugly claims to rile people up.
Well, as with their failed campaign against M37 two years ago, they’ve got it wrong. Instead of framing SB 505 as something that gives them more rights (which it does), OIA and others are successfully presenting SB 505 as a total and permanent suspension of M37 (which it isn’t).
What exactly is 1000 Friends’ game plan here? If they give up transferability and fast-tracking for a 5 month suspension and face, as they are, such clever media plays by OIA, what will happen when they presumably propose to actually, say, restrict M37?
Related posts: Measure 37 is back..., Measure 37 reform on the 2008 ballot, Hood River walloped by Measure 37 claims
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