“Ha-ha! We were right and you were wrong!” Ah, it feels so good to say this to Patti Milne and Sam Brentano, Republican Marion County commissioners who were thoroughly rebuked by judges after approving a south Salem subdivision on EFU (exclusive farm use) land that threatened our rural neighborhood’s water supply.
Attorneys representing the Keep Our Water Safe committee kept telling Milne and Brentano what the law required of them. Yet fellow commissioner Janet Carlson kept finding herself on the losing end of 2-1 votes. Her colleagues, who never met a piece of farmland they didn’t want to pave over, kept ignoring the law, water experts, and common sense. We and our neighbors had to spend over $30,000 on the subdivision fight.
When the case got to Circuit Court, Milne and Brentano were slapped down by Senior Judge Nely Johnson. The would-be developers of Ridge View Estates never appealed the decision, wisely. The Oregon Court of Appeals and Supreme Court have issued rulings favorable to our position on other Measure 37 cases where a developer wanted to continue building even after Oregonians said “stop” by passing Measure 49 in 2007.
The courts have understood that if you build three rooms of a five-room house, you could justifiably say “I’m about 60% done.” But if you’ve built three rooms of a 500-room apartment building, you’ve barely begun.
Milne and Brentano owe our neighborhood an apology because they wilfully ignored this common sense. In our written appeals, oral testimony, and letters to the Marion County commissioners, we kept telling Patti Milne and Sam Brentano what the law said – and they kept ignoring it.
In our case, just as in a Clackamas County case recently decided by the Court of Appeals, the subdivision developers planned a high-end project with expensive homes that would cost around $500,000. Yet after Measure 49 put an end to development, suddenly the developers claimed they’d had a change of heart and planned to build cheap homes.
The Oregon Court of Appeals and Supreme Court didn’t buy this argument. It was obvious to us that they wouldn’t, just as it should have been obvious to Milne and Brentano if they hadn’t chosen to be blinded by ideology, rather than being clear-eyed about what the law demanded of them.
We and our neighbors spent a lot of time and money in court undoing the mistakes made by the Marion County commissioners. If Milne and Brentano had followed the law, rather than their personal “pave it over” right-wing political mentality, this could have been avoided.
Makes me wonder what other bad-decision skeletons lie under Courthouse Square…
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Brian Hines is a Salem land use activist, writer, and blogger at www.hinesblog.com.
You can reach him at brianhines1@gmail.com.
