Senator Atkinson: Can you hear me now?
State Senator Jason Atkinson (R-Grants Pass) had this to say in the Senate Republican’s weekly Capitol Update.
Like the goofy Verizon spokesman in horn rimmed glasses, Oregon voters are tired of asking Salem “Can you hear me now?” It doesn’t take much to look back over the last few decades and see how Salem has ignored the clear voice of voters again and again.
For example, Oregonians have without exception turned down tax increase after tax increase, yet Salem continues to send them proposals for more spending at taxpayer expense. Voters ask themselves, “Can they hear us now?” When Oregonians put the personal kicker in to the state constitution, Salem thought they knew better and temporarily suspended it. Oregonians said “Can you hear us now?”
With Measure 37, 61% of Oregonians spoke with a united voice to declare that our land use system was broken. They clearly took a stand for the rights of property owners.
Since then, people have invested their last pennies to navigate paperwork and prepare their property for construction, yet the governor has turned a deaf ear on Oregon and wants to suspend their clearly stated will, and the dreams of property owners across the state. He stands in his office, shaking his finger at voters, telling them he knows best and we need to have a “time out” in the corner.
The governor complains about costs, about the logistics of implementation, or conjectures about the “intended will of the voters.” But those sound more like excuses then they do reasons. Voters have been clear about what they want; it is up to Salem to make sure it happens. The governor doesn’t have the luxury of second guessing what it was the voters meant. It is pretty clear. The time has come to end the dysfunction in land use planning. Oregonians are entitled to their property rights, and the rest of the state will reap the rewards of economic growth. Voters couldn’t have been clearer on the matter.
Governor, can you hear them now?
| Category: M37, Governor3 Comments so far
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I voted in favor of M37 but am now having some reservations.
I was up at my father-in-law’s house the other night and he had a map of Clackamas County hanging from his refrigerator. The map had all the M37 claims on it, color coded by what stage of the process the claim was in. That map had a lot of color. My father-in-law, like myself, voted for M37. I asked him about the map, he took a big sigh and said, “yeah, can you believe it, property values around here are going to go way down”.
He’d originally purchased his 7-acres of West Linn property in 1989, back when the area was still a sleepy little gas stop between I5 and Oregon City.
He went on, “They’re going to put in a huge development on the corner of Stafford and Big Fir.”
I now have real ambivalent feelings about the issue. While I agree with the premise that one has the right to do with their property as they see fit, I am now beginning to feel that decades of land use restrictions have warped what would have been the natural progression of development.
I keep trying to think of a better way to have been equitable to owner’s whose rights had been violated yet remained true to the covenant that had developed over time.
I don’t know, perhaps the problem is like Alexander’s Gordian knot — the only way to solve it being the sword.
rightOregon.org
I’ve contributed to the Oregon Family Council for years, I vote pro-life, and I am a registered Republican. Yet I voted AGAINST Measure 37, and I felt strongly about that vote (still do). Measure 37 not only showed that the land use system is broken, but it also replaced that system with something equally broken. What do we really need? Representatives who will take the lead to solve problems, who will not defer the sticky issues to the voters via the Measure system, and who will put the state ahead of political and personal interests.
Will an increase in taxes solve any of the problems Oregon now faces? I don’t feel it will. To me, the solution is to spend efficiently and eliminate some of the state’s spending policies and habits. Throwing money at a problem isn’t the best solution and it seems to me that our present governors solution is just that.