FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK... March 9, 2005
Is it Public Participation or Public Manipulation?
Public officials statewide are working hard at their comprehensive planning to comply with the mandated component of the planning known as “public participation.”
Lawmakers, trying to justify the legal maneuvering that can result in suppressing development and blatantly denying property owners the right to sell, develop, build, or otherwise use their own land for their own economic gain, tried to set up a system which would appear to be democratic. In short, they actually think that the above-mentioned crimes are ok if a room full of people say so.
So let’s take a look at how public participation has been solicited and arranged for in the Dane County Comprehensive Planning process. A couple of years ago at a press conference, an announcement was made that the planning process would begin with a kickoff meeting at a large conference center near downtown Madison. If you weren’t by your television set, you certainly missed the news conference. The newspapers nearly missed the story, referring to it only in passing in the Local pages. The Madison radio stations mentioned it once, in a newscast, right behind some other nearly nondescript news item. A few notices were shipped around in government circles. That’s it.
Now here we are, two years later, and I’m not kidding—the number of people actively involved in this planning is less than 150 in a county with a population of over a quarter million people. But we’re going to call this a serious “public participation” effort?
Freedom Matters would like to cover this ongoing story as much as possible since we feel it will likely result in a number of people finding out months and years too late that their dreams for their own properties have been legally prohibited.
March 2, 2005
Who Says You're a Farmer?
Throughout the ages of recorded history, there have always been farmers. Originally farmers most likely took advantage of open ground to avoid having to move trees out of the way. They were important stewards of the land. Also, farmers are credited with the domestication of our modern animal-based food supply. In the shift from the hunter-gatherer society to agrarian, there came the recognition that property ownership was desirable. Society began to confront property rights, surely almost as soon as ownership.
From the outset, farming was a subsistence-level activity, and the rules were simple: you had to consume what you grew. However, in the last few thousand years this process has become more interesting and dynamic as specialization meant that not all people were farmers. Those who were farmers shouldered the awesome responsibility of feeding their fellow citizens.
Surpluses could be sold and the money used to procure seed and equipment for the next season. Fast-forward to modern times. In many places in the world we are only just a little farther than the farmers of antiquity—the people of those places primarily grow enough to make it through the year, feed their families, and get into the next season.
However, in Dane County, progress has brought some misguided notions. Here, we think that the definition of “farmer” ought to be linked to the amount of income you generate and to some extent, apparently, how you live and what sort of dwelling you live in. If that isn’t ridiculous enough, a small group of zealots has taken it even further and linked some unrealistic numbers representing “viable farming practices” to the right to build a house on one’s OWN land!
It truly takes all kinds to make a world and yes, I know diversity is important, so this week’s Freedom Matters will examine “Modern Thought” and just who is a “farmer” in the “post-sensibility world of Progressive Dane politics.”
If all these quotations annoy you, I’m sorry—they annoy me, too. But they are a reaction to a situation where we have people who don’t know about tea in China or farming in Wisconsin forcing all of us to stand up to our eyeballs in the by-product of bovine-based agriculture.
February 23, 2005
Is Smart Growth Boring?
Recently a local talk show host decided to devote a little air time to the Smart Growth proceedings at the Dane County, Wisconsin Board of Supervisors. In her introduction she commented, “I know some of you may think of this as boring, but it really is important.”
While I appreciate this candid statement, I hope it isn’t a glimpse of an encroaching reality. A few politicians and a dedicated cadre of activists are engaging in continuous “conversations” under the auspices of our smart growth law, and I fear that this issue is so unimportant and even mundane to most citizens that it passes into law virtually unnoticed. That’s what happened before, back in 1981. At that time, it was ruled in the Farmland Preservation Law that in most places in Dane County one would need to purchase, or at least set aside, 35 acres of land for the right to secure one house site. Last Thursday evening one of our Dane County Board Supervisors remarked, during the regular meeting of the board, that “Five acres is enough land for anyone to build a house.” How I wish it were the case. This supervisor knew that the one-in-35 rule was in force currently and in no danger of revision. He didn’t mean that he would be satisfied with a one-in-5 law. This supervisor would be happy if it were one-in-70!
The heart of this matter, from our perspective at Freedom Matters, is that when you acquire land you should—especially in the United States of America—be entitled to determine what you do with it. Of course, it would not be reasonable to be doing something on one’s own land that could physically harm someone else. Beyond that, vague aesthetic considerations such as the term “viewshed” should not diminish your freedoms. So we are going to recommend to our readers—especially those who may not have been exposed to this information—that they review our series on capitalism and property rights, Volume 3, Issue No.’s 1-5.
We believe that if our citizens understood that their descendents’ future economic viability is impacted negatively whenever development rights are denied, they would not think the smart growth issue was boring; they would not acquiesce to regulations taking away those rights. We also believe that the secret to stopping this is informing everyone about it...so please pass this along! Help us explode the myth that smart growth is boring!
February 16, 2005
History Repeats Itself
In 1981 many landowners throughout Dane County were led to believe that if they accepted tax credits for agreeing not to develop most of their land they would be financially ahead and would also be participating in the noble cause of preserving farmland. Each township had to individually agree to this scheme and the vast majority did. Today those towns that did not fall for this plan are growing with plenty of new houses, great roads, well financed schools, and a future for the next generations living there.
In stark contrast the towns that bought into preservation find themselves living amongst a house here and there, minimally maintained roads, high taxes, schools in declining enrollment, fewer and fewer farms, extremely high land prices (which makes young farmers very rare) and productive farmland disappearing under scrub second growth and abandoned pasture. In short the farmland preservation of the early eighties has sold the future of an entire generation away and defeated its own purpose.
In addition the lopsided development of the county now results in the political reality that the dense urban areas will control the surrounding countryside and prevent any corrective action. This will be immediately apparent again Thursday night when the Dane County Board will vote to try to ensure that the Smart Growth comprehensive plan will be controlled completely by downtown Madison politicians. Make no mistake: they have one goal in mind-- stopping as much rural development as possible. Once again, history is repeating itself.