[Note: This is a part of a series.]
If you’re following the Northwest’s gaggle of anti-planning ballot measures, you have some new required reading today…
In the Oregonian, first rate reporting from Laura Oppenheimer on Washington’s Initiative 933, the progeny of Oregon’s Measure 37. She takes a look at I-933’s supporters and opponents and their competing beliefs. Also, in the Oregonian, an excellent article by Allan Brettman on what would happen under I-933 to Portland’s biggest suburb, Vancouver, Washington, where farms and suburbs share an uneasy detente.
In High Country News, writer Ray Ring investigates for-hire signature gatherers in Montana, where Initiative 154 was similarly spawned by Oregon’s Measure 37. Ring also tracks I-154’s shadowy campaign funding all the way to Howard Rich, the New York real estate tycoon who is bankrolling initiatives in several states.
High Country News also has five must-read profiles on Oregon residents who are personally affected by Measure 37. And HCN has a nifty round-up of the status of anti-planning initiatives in Western states.
Finally, in a preview of what other Northwest states may be facing if their anti-planning ballot measures pass, the New York Times’ Timothy Egan takes a hard look at a notorious Measure 37 claim in central Oregon. Unless Oregon taxpayers pony up $203 million, a property owner will carve up his in-holding in Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument with a mine, an energy project, and tract vacation housing.
Arie v.
Laura Oppenheimer’s piece was excellent, but I shook my head when she called out Paul Fellows, active in city planning for his Seattle neighborhood, who accepted higher density (and presumably higher property values) in return for “fir trees and country drives.” I’ve got a few thousand fir trees that I take excellent care of, but somehow I don’t believe they belong to Paul. 🙂 Not that I support I933, but there are some folks who may appear a bit quirky to the general voting public that we don’t need as a face on the no campaign. Paul is a prime example.