Envision Freedom, Eureka

Do you live by the Vermillion River?

If so, check this out.

Taxes and Public Benefit

Hopefully all of my readers found their way to www.mnpropertyrightswatch.org to read more about the recent goings-on with the water management issues in the Vermillion River Watershed.  The looming deadline for ordinance adoption has overshadowed and engulfed local efforts on the Collaborative Water Management Plan.

Last night, Eureka's town board began to address the proposed water management ordinance.  At that board meeting, in a roundabout way and perhaps unintentionally, Supervisor Carrie Jennings pointed out a consideration that's been so far overlooked in this discussion and which leads to the conclusion that the Joint Powers Organization should administer this water management ordinance.

She argued that individual landowners should bear the costs of implementing this ordinance because otherwise, taxes would have to be raised.

By that same logic, we should force the landowners whose land is taken by the Met Council for sewer line easements to give free easements and pay for the cost of laying the sewer line across their land because otherwise, the taxpayers would have to bear the cost.

It's fundamentally unfair to saddle individuals with the cost of implementing measures that benefit the public at large. That's why it's unconstitutional.

The ordinance's avowed purpose is to "protect the public health, safety, and welfare through the effective management of water resources in this Community." The plan upon which it is based goes on at great length to explain how the land in the watershed is connected by water, and how actions in one part of the watershed affect other parts of the watershed.

So if conservation easements in buffer areas are intended to serve the entire watershed (and beyond), shouldn't the cost be spread over the entire watershed?

The township doesn't have the power to do that, but the Joint Powers Organization does.

And if the watershed as a whole doesn't believe that the benefit to be gained justifies the cost, then maybe it wasn't such a good idea to begin with.

Freedom vs. Tyranny

Many things lately have been causing me to wonder whether this is the same country I grew up in.  The most recent occurred at our town hall, where two township officials discussed whether the township should take away building rights from property owners under certain circumstances.

Jeff Otto, chair of our board of supervisors, expressed the view that a building right is a significant part of the value of a property, and once a building has been erected on a site, the right should be considered as having been vested and not subject to forfeiture. 

Ken Olstad, a planning commission member, argued that it's just like anything else:  if you buy some stock in a company, you have to understand that it can go "poof."

For any reader who finds this reasoning compelling, I'd like to explain why I find it extremely frightening. 

These people, whether elected or appointed, are entrusted with the job of serving the people in a way that complies with the basic fundamental guarantees of the Bill of Rights, not just the more modern laws like the Wetlands Conservation Act.

So what's the difference between somebody losing their shirt in the market and somebody losing their rights to the government?  If you understand basic fairness, you would know that the difference between the market and government is that government imposes its will by force and the market is no more than a conglomeration of people, all of whom are trying to make a good deal, and none of whom have the legal right to compel you to buy anything.

Nor do they have sheriffs, police, or prisons.

This is an important difference, one that caused our founders to enshrine the Bill of Rights into our constitution.  There needs to be something to temper the power of government.  Otherwise, we get tyranny, which is what our founders were trying to avoid.

And another thing.  There's that word "inalienable" in the Declaration of Independence. 

Somebody else said this better:

The government of the United States is the result of a revolution in thought. It was founded on the principle that all persons have equal rights, and that government is responsible to, and derives its powers from, a free people. To Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers, these ideas were not just a passing intellectual fad, but a recognition of something inherent in the nature of man itself. The very foundation of government, therefore, rests on the inalienable rights of the people and of each individual composing their mass. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is the fundamental statement of what government is and from what source it derives its powers.

If our governmental officials do not understand and respect these principles, we get the tyranny this country was founded to reject.

Cross-posted at www.steamvalveblog.com

What's in a Name? Part I

After reading about the County's street naming ordinance I started thinking about the power to name something.  A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but "any other name" would conjure up a different image.

So here we have the "Dakota County Rural Collaborative Local Water Management Plan."  The name itself puts most people to sleep. (Do I really have to read it?)

Wouldn't it be nice if the title was less boring and convey something about what the Plan is about?  Here's one possibility:

The "It's so Hard to Read Let's Just Pass it Without Any Discussion" Plan.

That's what almost happened last August.  The plan was part of the public hearing where the Comprehensive Plan was also up for discussion.  The Comprehensive Plan draft had been through a long and public vetting process, and the public hearing attracted many concerned citizens eager to give their views on it.

In contrast, the "It's so Hard to Read Let's Just Pass it Without Any Discussion" Plan had not received any kind of discussion or opportunities for public input.  There was nobody at the public hearing who could address the questions that were raised about it.  In attending subsequent meetings of the Planning Commission, I learned that no-one on the planning commission had read it.

And who can blame them?  It's a horrible thing to try to get through.

For those brave and energetic souls who can get past the long and boring name, the mammoth size at 243 pages, together with the small print and liberal use of technical jargon and acronyms will generally cause the eyes to glaze over.  Because I do not want that to happen to my dear readers, I will not provide any long quotes from the document. 

The full text is available at the township's home page under "Rural Collaborative Water Plan"

There you can read all about glacial geomorphology, moraine areas, Des Moines Lobe till, surficial sediment, the obligatory sections on "Pre-Settlement Vegetation," "sensitive habitats and communities,""critical areas", and rare flora and fauna, along with many colorful maps showing us what the DNR sees when it looks at our land.  You can also learn about "stress ranges for brown trout."

There's even a section titled "Human Environment."  Unlike the sections covering plants and animals, however, there's no mention about stress ranges for humans or how this plan will affect landowners' blood pressure.  But you can read about all of the ways in which humans pose a potential threat to the groundwater.

At some point I learned that the "It's so Hard to Read Let's Just Pass it Without Any Discussion" Plan contained the actual text of Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization's Water Management Plan, and that's why it contained references to every geographical area within the entire watershed, instead of being limited to our township.  And that's why it contained so many goals, objectives and tasks that make no sense at all if applied to Eureka Township (e.g., "Continue to fund the Vermillion River Watch program," "Develop a management framework for water bodies, based on existing statutory classifications, desired uses, existing conditions, and the priorities of the VRWJPO")

There hasn't been any public discussion or consideration of any of this content to date.

After the August, 2008 public hearing, the sentiment was expressed at the next planning commission meeting that, considering the time and expense spent on the Plan, it was ridiculous that the planner who wrote it didn't bother explain it to anyone at the township.

Minutes from the following week's board meeting state that the planning commission needs more study of the Water Management Plan.

Fast forward to January, 2009.  Dean Johnson, the planner who wrote the "It's So Hard to Read, Let's Just Pass it Without Any Discussion" Plan, held a meeting in Empire Township, inviting all of the rural townships to send representatives so that he could explain the upcoming ordinances that he was going to draft to implement the plan.  I learned about the meeting and decided to attend so that I could ask the guy some questions.

The "You Don't Have to Understand it" Plan.

Mr. Johnson made it very clear that he didn't understand the technical aspects of the Plan.  He told the assembled township officials that if anybody asked them about TMDL's or anything like that, just respond that they didn't have to understand it either.  All the rural township officials have to know about the Plan, he explained, is that if they adopt it, they get to keep permitting authority, and if they don't adopt it, their landowners will have to go to the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization for permitting.  This would, he said, probably have the effect of costing the landowners more money to get permits, not to mention having to go before both the JPO and the township to get a permit.

Mr. Johnson was asked about whether there would be maps showing what land parcels would be subject to the requirements in his draft ordinance to implement the "You Don't Have to Understand It" Plan.  He said that, due to the short deadlines for adopting the ordinance, the maps may not be ready before the deadline for adoption was up. 

To confirm my understanding of what he had just said, I asked whether that meant that the town boards were expected to pass his ordinance without knowing what land it would apply to.  He said yes.

Here's the handout addressing Mr. Johnson's thoughts on the "You Don't Have to Understand It" ordinance.  More possible names later.

Oops

Yes, I know I promised to post more on the Water Management Plan, and I will do that.  But first, and perhaps as an introduction to what I will post on the Water Management Plan, I offer this:

I read with interest Eureka Township's notice of an upcoming public hearing regarding the adoption of " a local ordinance referencing the USNAS (Uniform Street Naming and Addressing System) procedure manual from Dakota County Board."  What's that?

Turns out, Dakota County used to have an ordinance mandating this uniform street naming and addressing system, but the County repealed it last October.

Why?  Because the county didn't have the legal authority to enact the ordinance in the first place.

From the October 21, 2008 minutes of the Board of County Commissioners:

Repeal Dakota County Ordinance No. 51 And Adoption Of Dakota County Uniform Street Naming And Addressing Procedure Manual

WHEREAS, Dakota County Ordinance No. 51, Uniform Street Naming and Addressing System was originally adopted in 1965, and applied to properties and parcels of land within the unincorporated areas of Dakota County; and

WHEREAS, in a 1992 amendment to Ordinance No. 51, the scope of the ordinance was expanded and gave the County the authority to apply the ordinance to all streets and roads located in all the townships and certain cities located within the County; and

WHEREAS, Ordinance No. 51 exceeds the County’s authority because the County only has the authority to name and number County roads; and

WHEREAS, Dakota County, after consultation with the municipalities identified in Ordinance No. 51, wishes to maintain the current system for naming streets and assigning addresses in order to preserve a logical and consistent system to those assignments; and

WHEREAS, the street naming and addressing system has been defined in the Dakota County Uniform Street Naming and Addressing System Procedural Manual; and

WHEREAS, maintaining the current system for naming streets and assigning addresses as set forth in the Dakota County Uniform Street Naming and Addressing Procedural Manual will promote public safety; and

WHEREAS, the Dakota County Planning Commission recommends adoption of the Dakota County Uniform Street Naming and Addressing System Procedural Manual.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the Dakota County Board of Commissioners hereby repeals Dakota County Ordinance No. 51, Uniform Street Naming and Addressing System, adopted October 26, 1965, as amended on October 21, 1975, and July 7, 1992; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Dakota County Board of Commissioners hereby adopts the Dakota County Uniform Street Naming and Addressing Procedural Manual, as presented to the Physical Development Committee of the Whole on October 14, 2008; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Acting Physical Development Division Director is hereby directed to send a copy of the adopted Dakota County Uniform Street Naming and Addressing Procedural Manual to the cities and townships identified in Dakota County Ordinance No. 51.

Clean Water Alert

Consent of the Governed

Back to the Eureka Township Water Management Plan, which has already been approved by the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization (VRWJPO) but has not yet been approved by the township. This is being advertised as a take-it-or-leave-it deal, and if we don't take it, it will be imposed on us anyway by governmental entities with more power than the township, and the township won't have any control over it. 
As though obediently adopting a plan which we are told we have no power to change can be described as local control in the first place.

Apparently, unquestioning obedience to the authority of government is what is expected of our township officials. 

I received a CD with a copy of the plan on it, and it is inscribed as "Water Plan - Final 2008 LWMP"

I wrote about this before, describing the public hearing that was held without anyone being present who could answer questions about the plan.

For anyone who is interested, there will be a joint meeting of the board and the planning commission tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the town hall, where supervisor Carrie Jennings will explain the plan to our elected and appointed officials.

With that as a backdrop, I thought it was serendipitous that this morning I came across this posting entitled, "Would you have been a Nazi?"  It describes the obedience experiments by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, and replicated more recently by Santa Clara University psychologist Jerry Burger, which concluded that the average rate of obedience to authority is about 65%, even when the experiment's subjects were instructed to inflict severe and life threatening injury on others.

These appalling results should serve as a very sobering message, and leave us with a commitment to the basic freedoms we usually take for granted.  Consider the meaning of these words:
 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

More later on the Water Management Plan.

Is This What We Have to Look Forward to?

In the UK they've passed some anti-terrorism laws that are now being used to spy on the locals to see if they're obeying the local ordinances:

More than half of town halls admit using anti-terror laws to spy on families suspected of putting their rubbish out on the wrong day.

Their tactics include putting secret cameras in tin cans, on lamp posts and even in the homes of 'friendly' residents.

The local authorities admitted that one of their main aims was to catch householders who put their bins out early.

Water Management Plan Update

As previously described, the recent public hearing on the proposed collective Water Management Plan  was a sham.  Nobody at the hearing seemed to know what the Plan contained.  The individual who wrote it wasn't at the hearing.  I asked that the township take more time to review the proposed plan so that township citizens could find out what was in it.

Here's the letter I submitted after the hearing.

Last night the Planning Commission considered the issue and decided to hold off on acting on the Plan until it could learn more about it. 

Jeff Otto was present and told the Planning Commission I had offered to scan the Plan document into a .pdf file for the township so that it could be posted on the township's website.  I explained that I'd already taken the five minutes that it took to scan it in, and that it was available on-line.  Ken Olstad asked me to send him a link to it so that he could put the link on the township's website.

Government in the Dark

As previously noted, the recent public hearing held 8/19 on the Vermillion River Collaborative Water Management Plan proceeded without access by the public to any copy, or even a summary, of the proposed plan accessible via the township website.  This seemed quite odd, because the township has been making just about everything else available for public review on the website.  This was conspicuously absent.

Before the public hearing, I emailed Jeff Otto asking that a copy of the Plan be posted on the website, and he made efforts to do that by emailing someone by the name of Dean Johnson, who I'm told actually wrote the Plan.  Here's a copy of the response I received. 

I was told that there was no electronic copy of the Plan.  This is hard to imagine.  Was the plan drafted using an old IBM Selectric, or some pre-settlement hammer and chisel?

Even assuming that what the author meant was that there was no electronic copy suitable for emailing to the general public or posting online (e.g., in a protectable format), the answer still doesn't quite smell right.  It takes less than one minute to convert a Word document to a .pdf document using free software easily downloaded from the internet.  I do it all the time.  It's hard to believe that the maps in the plan were hand drawn rather than obtained by the author as electronic files in .pdf or other graphic format.

This gave me the general impression that someone just didn't want township citizens to know what the Plan said before the public hearing took place.

Of course, a hard copy was said to have been available for review at the town hall.  During the hours the town hall is open, that is -- which of course is when most people are working.

So the Public Hearing proceeded as scheduled Tuesday night.  I got there a little early so I could spend a few minutes paging through the secret Plan before the hearing got underway.  The Plan is about two hundred pages long, filled with many maps and many, many pages of objectives, proposed actions, goals and policies. It looked like an effort to control whatever anyone does that might possibly affect water in any way, shape or form.

Another aspect of the public hearing on the secret Plan I found interesting was that the person said to be the author was not even present for the public hearing.  Perhaps, given the lack of accessibility of the plan itself, no-one was expected to offer any input on it.  Barry Farrington gave some very brief and extremely general comments about the plan before the hearing was opened up for public comment.  She seemed to be trying to make it sound routine, saying things like, all of the townships have to do this.

Don Pflaum and I offered some comments and objections relating to the Plan.  After the hearing, I went over to Jeff Otto and offered to use my scanner to scan the plan into a .pdf document.  He said no, that they would get an electronic version on line on the township website.

When no electronic version was available on the township's website this morning, I took my scanner and laptop over there and scanned it in myself.

For any brave souls wishing to plow through the copy I made, you can access it here (be patient - it's a large file and takes a while to open).  The maps didn't come out too well.  The black and white copy at the town hall that I worked from looks like the original maps may have been in color and then they were photocopied in black and white, which leaves something to be desired in quality and clarity.  Maybe someday we'll be able to view them on line in color.

Whatever Happened to Human Rights?

At what point do people lose sight of basic human rights? After how many tiny bites chipping away gradually at the freedom to live one's life as one sees fit so long as it doesn't hurt others? How many fake causes do you need to use, one after the other, to squeeze the freedom out of normal lives, until a majority of people are either so apathetic that they don't care anymore, or they have so adjusted their expectations that they no longer feel outrage when an 81 year old man is charged with a crime for repairing his neighbors' lawnmowers for free? And a neighbor on the same street is threatened with legal action for selling home-grown plants to others.

Because the city in which they live has adopted commercial zoning bylaws that do not allow any form of home business whatsoever, and they carry severe penalties. The 81 year old who likes to tinker with lawnmowers could be fined up to $25,000.

The article in the local paper takes great pains to point out that the 81 year old handyman doesn't charge for his labors, and the gardener gives her proceeds to charity. The article's author apparently thinks that lack of a profit motive should perhaps protect these two. The article's author has been brainwashed just like those who believe these laws are just.

What's wrong with earning money from selling plants you grow or fixing other people's lawnmowers? How in the world does either of these activities hurt anyone else? Frankly, I am at a loss to understand this thinking.

Cross-posted at www.steamvalveblog.com and Truth v. The Machine

Public Hearings

The public hearings tonight on the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and the newly minted secret draft of the water management plan were quite interesting, presenting much fodder for blogging.  I'll start with this:

If you attended the last public opportunity for input on the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, you may remember that one of the planners, on being questioned about why the various "sensitive area" maps remained in the plan draft even after deletion of the paragraphs that previously had referred to them, told us all that the maps really didn't mean anything. 

I asked about that tonight, saying that if the maps didn't mean anything, why doesn't the draft say that.

I was told that what the planner really meant was that the maps were in there purely for informational purposes only, and not to imply any policy statement.  So I suggested that the draft include a statement to that effect.  It seemed to be met with a positive response.

Public Hearing

There will be a public hearing Tuesday, August 19 at 7:00 at the Town Hall regarding the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and a local water management plan prepared for 12 rural communities located in the Vermillion River Watershed.

You can access the current copy of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan on line here. I haven't found any significant changes in it from the last version that was discussed at the June 25 Open House.
 
The draft of the local water management plan is apparently not available online.

The Bachmans

We just heard the shocking news about our neighbors Todd and Barb Bachman.  Our prayers are with Barb and her family.

Second Open House?

 

That's what the card says:

I guess they're just counting from the time the Planning Commission took over this project, because I know there's been more than one open house on this Comp Plan project before now.

A review of all six of the newly revised chapters, available at about the middle of this page, shows that the current version of Chapter 3 has eliminated the provisions about primary and secondary conservation areas.  What's left is very general language that could lead to the same result in the form of ordinances.

So it looks like the Planning Commission was listening, and for that I thank them.