Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Right attempting to destroy Growth Management

An ugly, fearsome combination of the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), the state Grange (responsible for the backwards primary system), the Bainbridge Citizens United, other groups, such as Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (King County) - and Tim Eyman - met in Olympia just this last week to consider running an initiative that would basically destroy our state's Growth Management Act, which currently prevents developers from putting Wal*Marts, condos, and shopping centers all over the countryside.

These so-called "property-rights" advocates (as if property somehow had rights) want to force the government to compensate landowners for the amount of money their property would have been worth if they were to have, say, built a Wal*Mart on it. They (the King County anti-CAO activists) are really mad because Seattle has less development restrictions. But Seattle isn't the countryside.

A few quotes from today's Seattle Times article (AP):

Washington state's initiative king, Tim Eyman, is offering support to groups interested in a version of Oregon's controversial land-use law, which stresses private-property rights and can force government compensation to landowners.

"The conclusion was the time was ripe for such an initiative," said Gary Tripp of a group called Bainbridge Citizens United. "We are going to draft an initiative ASAP."

Eyman said he went to offer support for a property-rights initiative, not to lead one. But he figures there's no "if" about an initiative — it's just a question of when.
Both NPI and Permanent Defense will be heavily involved in the fight against this ridiculously senseless idea. We'll join groups like 1000 Friends of Washington and the Sierra Club to prevent these people from taking out the state's anti-sprawl measures. We'll be posting a lot more on this issue later.

The fight this year has just begun.

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