Prop. 2 opens door to lawsuits and lawyers
To the Editor:
For the past year, a number of Boundary County citizens have been working hard to establish a new county comprehensive plan, which will form the basis of new local law regarding land use. It all came about after public outcry a year ago showed that the laws we currently have aren't working as our citizens expect they should in this day and age.
And all this hard work has been to answer some simple questions; who may do what, where, and how much upon the property within Boundary County to which they hold title.
That's what planning and zoning is, and all it is. Throw in some paperwork, fees, restrictions and requirements that apply to everyone equally and so that someone everyone can hold accountable has a semblance of an administrative handle on it, and you have land use law.
The nice thing about it, though … it is local law; predicated on a comprehensive plan that everyone in the community has had the opportunity to participate in and contribute to.
Just as a road map offers many routes by which to reach a destination, the Comprehensive Plan tells where the majority of us would like to be when we get there, defining what we value and what we care about. It doesn't set the itinerary, but opens up a range of routes to point us in that direction.
When the time comes to pick the exact route by writing those laws, commissioners have already said they're going to ask the citizens of this county to help. That's where the metal meets the meat, where the rubber meets the road. Where the rules of the game are established.
With a wide open road map, those who participated in developing the Comprehensive Plan had options ranging from nearly no rules at all to rules that could have applied to how you could paint your house or the rocks lining your drive.
Yet all the work done so far might be made moot. Proposition 2, if passed, will take away the right of the many to set the rules for all regarding land use, leaving it solely up to every individual property owner.
It's not so much the property owners who grew up here that scared them, those who know and respect the community and their neighbors, it's the ones who respect and learn our existing laws and have the money to exploit them. They came to see you can't differentiate between the two, and agreed we had better set some basic standards so no one can waltz in, waltz out, and leave with a pocketful of profit while the rest of us get stuck with the bill.
Proposition 2 is blatantly deceptive. As applies in Idaho in its first half, it accomplishes nothing that our state legislature hasn't already taken into account and already decreed. The right of eminent domain can only be applied for the common good and with just compensation to the property owner. We will not give your land to Wal-Mart for the sake of economic development.
It is the second half of Proposition 2 that would inflict the real damage, and it is law badly written exposing everyone, protecting no one, and favoring only those with the wherewithal to file the lawsuits.
That portion of Proposition 2 neuters local law; because no matter what decision a local official may make, within the law or without, somebody is going to gain and someone is going to deem a right, hence a value, lost, forcing local elected officials, the umpires, to split the baby and the hair to see who wants the baby saved or dead, and by which hair.
They have no chance to make the right choice, which would serve the interest of the people they serve, only that which exposes them all to the least liability.
No matter how well thought out and sensible the Comprehensive Plan this community writes, nor how logical and sane the rules they engender, by the very act of deciding, the people you elect will face a choice; decide and face suit, or not decide and face suit. The only sure way to preclude the threat of lawsuit made possible by Proposition 2 would be to establish no rules at all so there is no decision.
Proposition 2 denies the local people you elect the ability to make a decision on your behalf. Worse, it denies you the right to tell those you elect what you, as citizens, hold in esteem as regards this place we all call home and what you'd like the law to be.
If the people of this state pass Proposition 2, County Commissioners throughout Idaho will be obligated to apply minimal state standards, do away with the cost of an expensive department and be relieved of the toughest and most contentious decisions they are called upon to make, and I'm sure they'll be grateful for the relief.
Mike Weland
Boundary County Zoning Administrator