The Court of Appeals rejected Yamhill County's request for review because the County failed to file the appeal within the mandatory 21 day requirement.  Merilyn Reeves, President of Friends of Yamhill County noted, "It seems strange that the County Attorney was not aware that all land use appeals must be filed in 21 days."

The County was informed last June that the proposed increase was illegal, Many citizens opposed the increase, and FYC cited the applicable law.  The Board of Commissioners was informed that Oregon law caps the amount of an appeal at $250 for land use decisions made by the Planning Director without a public hearing.  However, two members of the Board, Chair Rob Johnstone and Commissioner Leslie Lewis, voted to ignore state law and increased the appeal fee to $700.

Merilyn Reeves stated, "It is very discouraging that the County Commissioners acted in violation of state statue. Our organization was forced to secure an attorney, spend money and time to get the County to follow the law.  We believe that a public hearing provides an opportunity for interested citizens to present information. The Planning Director may have incomplete information that can be presented during a hearing. The proposed increase from $250 to $700 was not in accord with state law, and has a chilling and undue financial burden on citizens who have a right and obligation to participate in land use decisions.   Taxpayers have to pay the long-range costs for schools, roads, and public safety, and should not be shut out of the decision-making process by exorbitant and unjustified appeal fees.

We are pleased that the Land Use Board of Appeals agreed with Friends of Yamhill County, but we regret that the Commissioners acted in violation of state law."  Source:  12/16/02 News Release, Friends of Yamhill County

"These state laws are driving us places we just don't want to go," West Linn Mayor David Dodds said. "As things stand now, we'll only be circumscribed from not growing further when we bump into the Willamette River."  The letters to more than 250 Oregon mayors are intended to precipitate action by the 2003 Legislature.

The more contentious proposal would eliminate the requirement of larger urban areas to provide a 20-year land supply for residential development. The second would amend systems development charges to let cities collect fees for growth effects on schools, as well as on police, fire and library services.

Both resolutions have been introduced during past legislative sessions and promptly hammered. This time, West Linn officials hope to tap into submerged anti-growth sentiments shared by cities similarly saddled with unwanted expansion. "A lot of things succeed because people are persevering," Dodds said. "That's one thing I've learned from the development community. They just do not give up."  West Linn's message resonates with some Oregon cities. At least 15, including Salem, Florence and Sherwood, have passed resolutions supporting one or more of the proposals.

But success is far from certain. "You can introduce these, but I don't see how they get passed," state Sen. Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said. "The development community will go nuts." The proposals might not get the blessing of even the seemingly friendlier League of Oregon Cities, which considered them briefly at a November meeting before assigning them to various committees.  "The truth is, there isn't unbridled growth," said Beaverton Mayor Rob Drake, the league's incoming president. "Growth, for the most part, is well thought out and well planned. And it certainly doesn't occur without fair hearing."

Land supply law in 1995 The 20-year land supply requirement became law in 1995 after a push from the Oregon Building Industry Association and other pro-development groups. The requirement was the driving force this year in Metro's decision to authorize the biggest-ever expansion of the Portland area's urban growth boundary.  "But that's a good thing," said Kelly Ross, governmental affairs director for the Home Builders of Metropolitan Portland. "It's a requirement for long-term thinking about the future, rather than just burying your head in the sand, as West Linn is trying to do."

West Linn spokesman John Atkins disagreed. "This is about power, not planning," he said. "I don't know of any other industry that gets a guaranteed supply of raw materials." State Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, has tried unsuccessfully three times to
pass laws letting cities charge developers the cost of building the schools and libraries needed to accommodate the new residents their projects will attract. Now, cities can charge only for new roads, parks, sewers and water systems. Schrader plans to take up the cause again as a state senator in 2003.

"The opposition tries to paint this as a new tax, when in reality it reduces taxes," Schrader said. "What people need to understand is, the (systems development) money doesn't come from poor granny who's lived in the community for years. It comes from rich granny who moves into town and buys that $400,000 so-called affordable house."

The new lobbying campaign isn't West Linn's first attempt to stem 40 years of 3.5 percent annual growth. The city's population has ballooned from 3,933 in 1960 to its current 23,090, transforming it from a sleepy bedroom community south of Lake Oswego to an affluent free-standing suburb.

Some cities vote on annexation In 1998, citizens passed a charter amendment requiring a vote before any new land could be annexed. Altogether 30 Oregon cities, representing nearly 500,000 residents, have passed similar measures. West Linn, bolstered by a City Council dominated by no-growth sentiment, then approved the highest growth-related fees in the state for new construction permits.  Home builders have complained, to no avail, that the high fees amount to a de facto moratorium on new-home construction in the city. "We believe that the SDC laws, as they stand now, are more than fair," the Home Builders' Ross said. "They're doing what they were intended to do, except in isolated cases such as West Linn, which has consistently misused them."

In Salem, however, strange coalitions sometimes form, giving new life to otherwise dead-end proposals. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Courtney is convinced that the coming session, won't focus solely on budgets. Given the 15-15 party split in the Senate, he said, considerable negotiating and trade-offs can be expected. State Sen. David Nelson, R-Pendleton, said he favors the 20-year land supply law. But, shedding light on just the kind of opening West Linn and other cities may be searching for, he said he also supports the notion of local control.

"Oregon's land-use laws are 30 years old and haven't kept up with the times," he said. "If there have to be changes, we need to look at what works at the local level."  Source:  12/12/02, The Oregonian, by Dana Tims, danatims@news.oregonian.com
 

A smaller group of demonstrators from the same organization - the Florence Citizens Democracy Watch - gathered with anti-war picket signs a few weeks ago.  But this time they decided to inject a theatrical note into their protest.

They wheeled what appeared to be a body bag on a gurney to symbolize those who might not come home from a war with Iraq.  They hobbled on crutches or sat in wheelchairs to make the point that people can suffer injury or lose limbs in a war.  They toted black barrels to suggest a thirst for Iraqi oil may be behind the president's eagerness for war.

Simulating a wounded war veteran, protester Sean Sisson, 17, crosses Highway 101 in Florence on Tuesday as he and fellow protesters stage an afternoon anti-war rally.  Photo by Brian Davies / The Register-Guard.

The messages seemed to play well, judging from the honks and waves and peace signs from passing motorists.  "We've had such a positive response," said Kathryn Damon-Dawson, who with her husband, Rand Dawson, helped conceive what they called the Florence Peace Theatre.  "It's fun.  Have you heard all these cars tooting their horns?  I only had one person yell at me today.  I think this has been very effective."  As they passed the community's busiest intersection, a few motorists indicated their displeasure with revving engines, hoots of derision and, in at least one instance, a one-fingered salute.

The event was one of many planned by anti-war groups across the country to commemorate the Dec. 10, 1948 adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly, Rand Dawson said.  Making war is not one of those rights, he said.  The images of death and destruction portrayed by the demonstrators may seem surreal, he said, but "these really are the images of the Washington war policy."

Dawson said better weather would have produced a better turnout.  He called Tuesday's event an "act of hope" that Americans will ultimately decide that money can be better spent on bridges, Social Security, Medicare and schools than on another costly military adventure.

One of the oldest demonstrators, World War II veteran Jack Clarke, pulled a mock barrel of oil on a hand truck.  Waging war against Iraq, he said, would likely harm thousands of innocent civilians, and would be comparable to using a machine gun to kill flies.  "I just think all wars are unnecessary, unforgivable and there's no excuse for it," said Clarke, 76.

Seventy-three-year-old Mary Lou Goertzen recalled demonstrating against the Vietnam War as a young mother while living near Kansas State University.  Because it's Christmas season, she said she decided to make a sign urging people to consider what Jesus would have to say about a war with Iraq.  "I don't think Jesus would suggest we bomb anybody," she said.

Bill Fleenor, 53, of Mapleton, said he wishes similar events had occurred more often prior to the Vietnam War.  It's good, he said, that "we don't have to do it after the fact this time." Source:  December 11, 2002, The Register-Guard, by Larry Bacon.

The Appraisal Foundation, commissioned by the BLM, concluded that the agency's operation and management of the process is "politicized" and results in the loss of federal money and natural resources.  It adds that the process "seriously erodes the BLM's ability to apply appraisal standards and to consistently uphold the public trust assigned to them by law."

Jim Hughes of the BLM says it's hard to establish a fair price for land in remote areas where there are no comparable sales on which to base appraisals.  But in the wake of the rpeort, the BLM is conducting a 90-day review of all land exchanges currently on the table, including a controversial land trade in Utah's San Rafael Swell.

Meanwhile, the BLM's senior appraisal specialist, David Cavanaugh, has asked to be transferred out of the agency, and Ray Brady, chief of Lands and Realty, has been assigned to a different office.  An agency spokesperson says the transfers are unrelated to the report.  Source:  November 25, 2002, High Country News, by Jamie McEvoy.

As part of the deal, the 35,000 square foot Dunes Village Shopping Center where the Thriftway Market is Located, at the junction of Highways 101 and 126, is being sold by Thriftway owners Mike and Linda Owen to Steve Lemhouse and his three sons - Tim, Pat and Mike.  The Owens and the Lemhouses have operated their businesses about 23 years.

Besides the 25,000 square foot market, the shopping center includes a laundromat owned by the Owens, a Subway sandwich shop, a dry cleaners, a liquor store and a cafe.  The Lemhouses will take over management of the leased properties and have bought the laundromat from the Owens, Steve Lemhouse said. The center is a familiar gateway for travelers heading into Florence along 126 from the Eugene area.

Lemhouse and Mike Owen declined to be specific about how much the shopping center sold for, but said it was around $3 million.  Lemhouse said the deal involved him selling his hardware store property next to Safeway to the grocery chain for an amount that covered most of the cost of buying the shopping center.  Because he is using the proceeds from the sale of his hardware store property to buy a new business location the capital gains on the sale is not taxable, Lemhouse said.

Owen said the opening of the Fred Meyer Store at the north edge of Florence more than two years ago was a catalyst for the sale.  There is not enough business in town to support three major grocery stores, he said, making both him and Safeway interested in putting together a deal that would buy him out.  Safeway wants to compete with Fred Meyer, Owen said.

The Thriftway market has about 25 full and part-time employees, and Owen said he hopes many of them will be able to find jobs with Safeway.  "Safeway has agreed to interview anyone who works for me with the possibility of hiring them," Owen said.

Beginning Nov. 11, the Thriftway Market will begin marking down and selling off its inventory, Owen said.  He expects to close by Dec. 1.  Lemhouse said he plans to complete the hardware store move early in January.  "There won't be a shutdown," he said.  For a time, Lemhouse said, the business will be operating at both locations.  He said the present store is "stacked to the gunnels" and the Thriftway site will provide about twice as much space.

The Lemhouses also own a former elementary school building next to the hardware store and operate a saw shop and furniture store in the old school.  That operation will remain unchanged, Lemhouse said.

A Safeway spokesman had no comment on the sale, but Owen said the company hopes to tear down the present True Value building and proceed with the gas station early next year.  However, that could be held up by an appeal of Planning Commission approval of the station by Bud Miles, a local Texaco Oil Co. distributor.  The City Council is expected to rule on the appeal Nov. 18, and Miles said he is prepared to carry the appeal to a state review board.  Source:  November 7, 2002, The Register-Guard, by Larry Bacon.