Posted inMeasure 37

How Marion County should handle Measure 49

It's been frustrating for us and our neighbors to see bulldozers rolling on subdivision road construction just a few days before Measure 49 goes into effect on December 6. Measure 49 limits development on this property to three home sites on six acres of the least valuable farmland. The Measure 37 claimant plans 43 homes, each with a well, on this groundwater limited land. Leroy Laack, the developer, is quoted in a front page Salem Statesman Journal story: "Our intentions are to push ahead just as fast as we can within the context of the current law," Laack said. "So…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Measure 37 bulldozers roll as Marion County ignores Measure 49

Today KATU's Salem bureau filmed an excellent story about Marion County's outrageous decision to approve a construction permit for a Measure 37 subdivision just nine days before Measure 49 will make it illegal. Laurel and I were interviewed for the story. Melica Johnson and Dino, her cameraman, had us stand outside on our deck – where we were pleased to talk about how crazy it is to let bulldozers tear up Oregon farmland for a large subdivision when 62% of Oregon voters said "No!" to this on November 6. Here's my YouTube video of the two and a half minute…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Marion County disrespects Measure 49 voters

Just as our neighborhood's Keep Our Water Safe committee has been fearing, two Marion County commissioners are thumbing their noses at the 66% of county voters who said "yes" to Measure 49 on November 6 (along with 62% of Oregonians). The voters said they didn't want large subdivisions to be built on farm, forest, and groundwater limited land. Measure 49 goes into effect on December 6, ten days from now. But Sam Brentano and Patti Milne have decided to keep on issuing construction permits for large subdivisions on farm, forest, and groundwater limited land right through December 5. Mind-boggling. Crazy.…
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Posted inNeighborhood

After wine tasting, I end up with a dog of a Pinot Noir

Would a wine connoisseur buy a bottle because it has a dog face on it? Surely, not. But I'm surely not a wine connoisseur, so the outcome of my first Oregon wine tasting experience was entirely fitting to my oenophile standard. Actually, it was my first wine tasting anywhere, a fact I stated repeatedly during my visit to the nearby Ankeny Vineyard this afternoon in hopes any faux pas I committed would be more easily forgiven. I'm sure I made a few, but my wife was the only person who pointed one out to me. After a smidgen of the…
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Posted inHome life

Do the Gratitude Dance (if you’re not too full)

Thanks to a visitor on my other blog I learned about the Gratitude Dance. It's super easy to do. And perfect for today. But maybe not advised after eating a big Thanksgiving dinner. The Gratitude Dance is considerably kinder and gentler than the haka -- a traditional Polynesian dance that the Jefferson High School football team in Portland has taken up before each game. YouTube, naturally, has many haka videos. I especially liked this one, a Hakan vs. Tongan face off at a rugby match.
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Turkey pardons, PETA, and Unturkey’s sad demise

Yes, there's a lot to be thankful for on this day before Thanksgiving. But cruelty to animals isn't one of them. A few nights ago we watched HBO's "I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA." It showed many disturbing scenes, including what goes on in a turkey slaughterhouse. Believe me, if you watched that secretly-filmed footage before you sat down to devour your "bird" tomorrow, most likely you wouldn't have an appetite. Don't believe me. Watch on a PETA web site. Or on the viewer below. Here's another disturbing video of how turkeys arrive on dinner…
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Posted inComments

Comment conversations now easier to follow

Good news from TypePad, the host of this blog: it’s now possible to be notified when a new comment has been added to a HinesSight post. I’ve described this new blog feature here. I’ve also offered up some tips about Google Reader, which I’ve found to be a good way of keeping track of web site and blog content, including comments on posts. For quite a while it’s bothered me that TypePad only allows bloggers like me (who don’t customize their blogs via their own programming) to only show the most recent 10 comments in the sidebar. If a post…
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Posted inUncategorized

Comments on HinesSight posts

Comments are often the best part of a blog post. This is how blog visitors get to communicate with other visitors and the author of the post. Recently TypePad, which hosts this blog, added some new comment features. Here's the best one: you now can subscribe to a comment feed. If you're not familiar with Internet feeds, here's an overview. Basically they're a way of keeping up on what's happening with a web site or blog without actually visiting the site/blog. The comment section of every HinesSight post now begins with: "You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the…
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Posted inUncategorized

OIA keeps spewing post-election Measure 49 lies

The election is over. Oregonians voted for Measure 49 overwhelmingly, just as I predicted. But the lies keep on coming from Oregonians in Action (OIA). These are the folks who gave us Measure 37 in 2004, the confusingly-written, poorly thought-out trashing of Oregon's land use laws. OIA said that Measure 37 would let little old ladies like Dorothy English build a house or two on their land. Instead, the reality turned out to be way different. Such as large subdivisions on groundwater limited farmland. OIA surely knew that this time Oregonians would vote to preserve what makes our state so…
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Posted inEntertainment

Writer’s strike gives us funny videos, at least

My wife and I already are tired of watching re-runs of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Pretty soon we'll be reduced to desperate measures, like watching programming with actual educational value, such as the many nature and science shows stored up on our digital video recorder that we've been ignoring in favor of Comedy Central. There's a few bright spots to the writer's strike, though. This YouTube video, "Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer," is terrific entertainment. Persuasive too. Stick it to those corporate bastards, writers! This other YouTube offering, apparently from The Colbert Show writers, isn't…
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Posted inFamily

How I was blown away by a nuclear bomb

Whenever I fret too much about modern environmental degradation, I like to think back to the not-so-good old days of the 1950s when the United States conducted over 150 above ground tests of nuclear weapons. Most of these were at the Nevada Test Site. In 1955 my mother, who was divorced, moved with me to Three Rivers, California. Three Rivers is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the other side of which lies Nevada. Nowadays people worry over miniscule bits of contamination in our food, water, and air. Back in the '50s it was no big deal…
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Posted inHome life

Deer on LSD would be even worse

My wife is being driven crazy by a male. Par for the course, but this time he isn't me. It's a male deer, a buck. Or bucks. She doesn't know how many are doing what comes naturally to them this time of year. Marking their territory. Which, unfortunately for Laurel, includes our ten acres in rural Oregon. She's planted countless native trees on our property, protectively watering them during dry spells, netting them when they're young, spraying Deer Off in the fall in an effort to divert bucks' attention away from the enticing trunks. After all, the bucks should have…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Hardly any Measure 37 claimants will have vested rights

The battle to pass Oregon's Measure 49 has been won (62% of voters said "yes" to fixing Measure 37). Now the fight has shifted to determining which, if any, of the 7,500 Measure 37 claims around the state are vested under common law. Vesting means that enough work has been done on a claim to allow it to continue under Measure 37, rather than Measure 49. Yesterday Ralph Bloemers of the Crag Law Center released an excellent memorandum, "Transition to Measure 49 & Vested Rights." It's must-reading for interested citizens, state agencies, and local governments, along with a companion memo…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Post-election Measure 49 kudos and calumny

First, the kudos. Which I'm forced to offer to myself, since my marvelously precise prediction about how the vote on Measure 49 would turn out hasn't received the non-Brian praise that it so obviously deserves. Back on November 2, I said that 63% of Oregonians would vote "yes" on 49. And so it (almost) came to pass on November 6, with the latest results showing a 62% approval. So Brian, congratulations. Why, thank you, Brian. On behalf of Brian, who happens to be me, I accept this public acclamation and all that comes with it. Dude, this is just a…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Vesting Measure 37 claims under Measure 49

Measure 49 has passed. It's the law of Oregon. Measure 37 has been fixed – not perfectly, but well. So what happens now with Measure 37 claims? In many cases the legal concept of "vesting" will come into play. With the passage of Measure 49, Measure 37 claimants are going to take one of three paths: (1) The "express lane" if a claimant wants 1 to 3 home sites. Straightforward. Easy. Hardly any questions asked by the state Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). Claims on high value farmland, forest land, or groundwater limited land will have to take…
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Posted inMeasure 37

Reading “tea leaves” of Measure 49 outcome

Avid proponents of Oregon's Measure 49 that we are, it's hard for my wife and I to pass the remaining hours until the votes are counted without worrying about the outcome. So I've been consulting some cyberspace tea leaves. They've helped me reaffirm my previous prediction that this fix to Measure 37 will pass by a 63% to 37% margin. The only non-affirming omen that I've gotten was my solitaire loss a few minutes ago after I asked my computer, "Give me a win if Measure 49 will pass." The cards didn't turn out for me. But then, they usually…
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Posted inMeasure 37

My big Measure 49 media exposure day

Oh, yeah, I'm hot. Only media-wise though. And just for a day. But I'm pleased with the Sunday exposure in Steve Duin's Oregonian column and the Salem Statesman Journal's editorial page, because whatever exposes the pluses of Measure 49 and the minuses of Measure 37 is good for Oregon. Duin, an ex-sports columnist, returned to his roots and called his piece "At DEQ, the refs swallow their whistles." It's about my battle to get the state Department of Environmental Quality to enforce its 1200-C (stormwater/erosion control) permit rules. The Measure 37 subdivision next to our neighborhood started to build roads…
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Posted inMeasure 37

My prediction on Measure 49 vote: Yes

It's time for this avid Measure 49 supporter to go out on a limb and make a prediction about how Oregonians will vote next Tuesday. I say it'll be 63% "Yes." I picked that percentage partly because it is higher than the 61% that favored Measure 37 in 2004. I believe that Oregon voters have had their eyes opened about what Measure 37 has brought the state: unfairness, divisiveness, asphalted-over farm and forestland. This is going to produce an electoral turn-around. We're not going to see the same sort of urban-rural split as in 2004. I'm predicting that a majority…
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