Vote ‘yes’ on Prop. 1

Special interests are attempting to mislead us as to the true value of Prop. 1, the Private Property Protection Act. They say it is a proposition we cannot afford.

They lie.

Their big lie is that it will cost taxpayers an enormous amount of money. To drive this idea home they cite that in Oregon (which has a similar regulation to that of Prop. 1) $17 billion in claims have been filed against the state and counties. The implication by special interests is that this is money the government will have to pay through additional taxation.

Absolutely not true, and here’s why.

I know firsthand about this since I have filed a property claim in Oregon. My claim was for loss of value of our family property due to the county and state’s imposition of onerous land use regulations. The county and state had the option of either paying us for our loss due to their regulations or waiving the regulations. Both the county and state chose to waive the regulations, allowing us to use our property as we choose. Imagine that, we now get to use our own property as we see fit and not as government sees fit.

It was Oregon’s law enacted by Measure 37 that did this. Prop. 1 is nearly a mirror image of Measure 37, although our law only applies to new, not existing, regulations.

The point is that my claim of loss cost the Oregon government nothing. It didn’t have to pay us a dime. My claim was simply for loss of value of our property due to government-imposed regulations. When government removed the regulation from our property our claim went away. No money changed hands, but we got our value back.

My claim was a very small portion of the total $17 billion in claims made by Oregon property owners.

The claim’s total has now escalated from $17 billion to $21 billion and is still rising. Keep in mind this $21 billion is the total of all individual property value loss claims for the whole state. The only claims that have to be paid are ones where Oregon wants to still impose regulations that reduce the individual property value.

It is not a total bill to be paid as our local special interests would have you believe; rather, it is a real summation of how much money unreasonable government regulations can personally cost all the state’s individual property owners.

The Private Property Protection Act will help us maintain our true property values and deter Mat-Su Borough politicians from enacting future onerous land use regulations. Without Prop. 1 they are free to write any restrictive land-use regulations they please without considering the consequences to all of us.

Prop. 1 has other very favorable features. One is that it freezes all existing regulations. Those regulations now on the books stay on the books. No one can claim for a loss using any past regulation. What you now have you can keep. No one can come in and build a race track in your subdivision, nor a sex store, nor install a coal-bed methane pump after the proposition passes any more than anyone can do these things today. Prop. 1 simply forces the Borough assembly to carefully consider the economic consequences of its future property regulation actions.

It is the economic reins we, the people, hold in our hands to force politicians to maintain our property at its full value.

Don’t let special interests and the politicians mess with the value of your property. I beg you to vote for Prop. 1. It is your private property that is at stake. It is truly the Private Property Protection Act, and it protects all Democrats, all Republicans and all Borough residents.

Aaron Downing

Palmer