Email Exchange on Measure 37

Clackamas County Commissioners asked for reactions to the Measure 37 Claims Map they sent to nearly every county resident. Here is what I wrote and the email exchange that ensued:

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To the County Commissioners:

I received the M37 claims map in my mail the other day and I can't tell you how delighted I am to see that the county will be experiencing so much development in the next few years. Besides restoring property rights to deserving property owners, it looks like the county will be benefiting from a great deal of increased property taxes in the near future.

Please write back and let me know how much the County spent on printing and mailing these maps to every resident.

I now have your map prominently displayed in my house and look at it regularly with a great deal of pride and excitement.

Matt Wingard
Member, Clackamas Economic Development Commission

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Good morning, Matt……

Thank you for your comments. As a member of the Economic Development Commission you are no doubt familiar with economic issues, including taxation. It would be wonderful if most of these claims were to result in what you have described by bringing more tax dollars to the County’s citizens. The awkward part is most of the claims are for residential development. If you were to research the matter, you would find statistics show that for every $1.00 collected on residential development, a local government spends approximately $1.25 on services to support that development. When you consider the consequences of spending $1.25 for every $1.00 collected, most folks would agree the County is not going to get much benefit from the taxes.

I am sorry, but I do not have details on the cost of mailing the maps. The mailing was performed through the office of Public and Government Affairs. I recommend you contact that office for that information.

Again, thank you for your interest.

Cordially,

John Borge
Customer Service
Planning Division

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John:

Can you back up your claim about residential development being a money loser for the county by providing a few citations? I'm wondering if the theory holds up with the sorts of rural development that will occur under M37.

Also, can you give me an email address for someone at Public and Govt. Affairs who can answer my question about the cost of the mailing?

Thanks for your reply,

Matt

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Good evening, Matt……

Thanks for following up on this subject. Too often folks are just willing to let things go and I really appreciate your interest in trying to become more informed.

I have attached a copy of a Cost of Community Services article that was prepared by the American Farmland Trust. Though there are other similar community services analyses available through other organizations, this article was the quickest and easiest one to forward to you. In the event you want more detailed information, I suspect many similar studies are available from the universities.

Matt, I am not interested in debating the merits of Measure 37 because it would serve no purpose. The only reason I am responding at this time of evening is because I think you might want to be more informed. Please understand around 95% of the Measure 37 claims is for residential housing. Just take a moment, examine the article, look at the map and reach your own conclusions.

Thanks, again….and enjoy your evening.

Cordially,

John Borge, Principal Planner
Clackamas County Planning Division

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John:

I don't find your source to be very neutral. The big variable in rural development is kids. If the people moving into large lot homes on the M37 map do not have kids the impact on the county is nowhere near as great since the roads and utilities are paid by the developer (plus you have SDCs).

The County doesn't have to supply water, sewage or roads in the rural areas away from other development. And the increase in property tax payments on land going from farmland to large lot homes is thousands of dollars per home.

Obviously, tightly developed subdivisions where families move in may be a net negative in property taxes for the county due to school expansion costs.

Personally, I live right up against the UGB at the intersection of Boeckman and Wilsonville roads. There are a couple of M37 developments planned within a short walk of my home in the Stafford Road area. I'm looking forward to the new development, the new neighborhoods, the economic development and the exercise of property rights by the property owner.

I remain very concerned about the rising cost of housing in the County and the decreasing ability of lower income families to be able to own their own home. If a million people are going to move into Oregon over the next 20 years, how will we keep home prices down if we don't build?

BTW, what percentage of the county's undeveloped land due these M37 claims account for?

Matt

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Matt….

Thank you for your comments. Please understand that I am not interested in trying to convince you of the authenticity of a report. I was simply forwarding you the information you requested.
Cordially,

John Borge, Principal Planner
Clackamas County Planning Division

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PRO Measure 37 Repeal Speech at Dorchester

[NOTE: I was asked to make a 5-minute speech at Dorchester against Measure 37. Hey, someone had to. This quickly become known as my "Borg" speech. Enjoy!]

Oregon belongs to all of us, not just those of you who have M37 claims...

These claims will do real damage to Oregon
We have chosen to be different here in Oregon. I meet people on a regular basis who chose to move to Oregon specifically because of our progressive environmental ethic and our forward-looking land use planning laws that have preserved Oregon’s scenic and rural landscape. We have chosen to elevate “respect for the environment” and “sustainability” above short-term economic gains, the profit-motive and the paving and strip-malling of America. We don’t want to look like Los Angeles. We’ve made that decision.

We are in the process of adding one million people to the population of Oregon. Do we want sprawling suburban neighborhoods and no landscape? Or do we want to maintain the Urban Growth Boundaries that were wisely set up to make sure most of Oregon’s natural beauty will still be here for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to enjoy?

The Willamette Valley is Oregon's agricultural industrial park
Measure 37 development claims now threaten at least 132,346 acres of the Willamette Valley's richest farmland. If all these developments move forward as planned, eventually engulfing farmland, land-use specialist Jim Johnson points out, Oregon stands to lose an astonishing amount of its richest ag land -- 2 1/2 times what the state lost to development between 1982 and 1997.

Oregon’s farm families have a strong connection to their land. They have a right to continue that legacy and pass it onto their children without having to worry about urban sprawl running them over. Protecting their way of life is a win-win for us all. When we enforce land use rules that keep subdivisions from creeping towards them or surrounding their farms and pastures, we also protect Oregon’s scenic beauty for ourselves.

A final note
I do not expect to win this vote today. This audience is not representative of Oregon as a whole. The people moving into this state who believe in strong environmental protections--by my estimates about 8,000 of us each year—we believe there must be balance between property rights and environmental concerns. In many ways, M37 was a trick, a cruel joke on Oregon’s voters. Dorothy English was used as a stalking horse for large corporate interests. The voters did not intend for this outcome.

We have the votes, we have the courts, we maintain political control over all of Oregon’s major cities and all of Oregon’s statewide offices. Each year we grow stronger. We sit on the planning commissions, the economic development commissions, the city councils, the transportation committees, the transit committees, the task forces, the Big Looks, the New Looks, the alliances, the chambers of commerce, the school boards…and in nearly every case, we dominate them.

You are outnumbered.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.