March 21, 2008 | |
Rural Property Owner | |
by Jack Venrick To: Senator Pam Roach (Home & Office), Representative Chris Hurst, Representative Dan Roach: bcc: Private Property Rights Groups, Freedom Foundation, Washington State Attorney General's Office |
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Table of Contents & Abstract In this case, turning what may appear to be do good political decision of a Rails to Trails Act into a Rails To Trails Taking by Tyranny Act. If you assume government is exercising land taking within the laws of the land, the process of taking is deeply flawed. No Citizen should be treated the way King County Washington & the City of Enumclaw are railroading this trail down private property owners back yards. There is no common good served when even one private property owner is abused, let alone hundreds and thousands. God would not touch sovereign free will and free choice, because HE gave this gift to each of US. This seems to be a big secret in America. I. Rural Property Owner Ed Storm and neighbor meeting minutes 3-1-2008 The state of the state has long since gone beyond the laws of the land, the organic laws and our unalienable rights.
The yellow swath on the map is the 400' Rail to Trail taking of Private Property King County wanted 100’ for a 10’ trail for free
Scott Johnson - King County Washington Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Civil Division "Your deed is worthless" John Wise – Enumclaw, Washington Mayor Calls the police on me because he can't stand listening to the hard truth regarding the government double standard of denying basic private property owner rights to keep their property These are my notes and opinion to the best of my understanding of the stormy meeting below. A local rural property owner called me for help, via the Citizen Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR). Ed Storm and a neighbor arranged a meeting with the Mayor of Enumclaw, John Wise, an Enumclaw City Parks employee and two King County employees, Karen Heidergott of the Facilities Management Division and Scott Johnson, the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Civil Division on 9AM, Saturday 3-1-2008. The meeting was rained out and moved to the Enumclaw city hall. Ed Storm and his neighbor were meeting regarding a 400 foot taking being foisted upon them for the Foothills Rails to Trails. Approximately a dozen friends and neighbors of these two rural property owners attended the meeting to discuss what to do with this proposed taking by King County with the help of the City of Enumclaw. We were told during the meeting that 250 property owners were sent a letter during the years 1997to 2005 regarding this Foothills rail to trail taking. It appears they were asked to sign the papers and return them to King County otherwise they would forfeit any ownership. 220 property owners responded and 30 did not. King County filed a default judgment upon these 30 property owners would did not return their letters and took claim to a 400 rail road easement. Some of the property owners had received title from City of Tacoma Water. The City of Tacoma gave up the title to the owners for a maintenance access for those properties abutting their water main. It also appears that there has been a further overlay of a state highway designation upon this rail bed to further rig the taking. We were told that the federal Rail to Trail Act conveyed a "higher" ownership or title to the applicable governments in the jurisdiction of the city or county. The King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney told us that the title given to some of the property owners by City of Tacoma, e.g. Ed Storm, were worthless. During the meeting, I made several statements that the government could no longer subvert the laws of the land to their favor and continue to use strong arm tactics to take private property whenever they wanted it. They must, at least, come to the property owners first, before they even start projects like this. I addressed the big picture of growing government taking locally and across America. I mentioned the 10,000 cases of eminent domain action against property owners in the last 5 years or so. I was told this not an eminent domain taking. King county says they don't have to use eminent domain because they own the rail to trail land by federal law, i.e. Rails to Trail Act? There was much discussion how King County was still collecting property taxes from some property owners while claiming at the same time the property owner did not own this 400 wide rail bed running through their property. We discussed moving the trail instead of running it straight through people property. That was met with blank stares. The trail must be a straight taking vs. a crooked taking, perhaps? The property owner's attorney from Buckley, Washington, warned the county and city too, that there was a double standard with their taking. In other words, the shutting down of everyone's else rights to use their private property the way they see fit, while at the same time, steam rolling over other private property owners pushing developments and rails to trails and raising property taxes to pay for the illegitimate taking several times over. Another property owner in the meeting warned the Mayor and King County of their double standard. Our county and city servants looked at us with blank stares. The look of deer in head lights. Ed Storm, I believe, added the following story of a rural family next to SR164 just west of Enumclaw, Washington that had a farm where kids could come and ride horses. King county shut them down for some reason. Tens of thousands of people pass this sign everyday between Enumclaw and Auburn Washington on SR 164. This is a great example how rural property owners are learning how to fight back against King County and city tyranny to gag us. The sign reads; CLOSED DOWN BY KING COUNTY KEEP KIDS OFF STREET OFF FARMS. This rural farm family had a business offering horse rides to children. I added the following comments to the meeting to set the tone how the city and county have a clear double standard of taking private property. 1. The City of Enumclaw has taken two 100 acres farms SE of town that had standing water on them and approving that into a housing development of a hundred or so homes, 12 feet apart. During the ground preparation they had a lake of water dug up in the fields. 2. The City of Enumclaw took half of the Rainier Horse Stable near me and developed a large middle school complex directly off SR 169 creating surrounding traffic problems AND creating a further problem with the State DOT trying to foist a roundabout on us which we had to kill in a separate action lead successfully by Senator Pam Roach and Representative Chris Hurst. 3. There are rumors the City of Enumclaw is now trying to expand its takings of rural private property further west of the town along SR164 out to the present Yellow Beak Tavern, 5 minutes from my land. 4. Enumclaw City and the State use excessive force on a couple tavern owners and managers in town. Consequently, one sold the business and the other is suing the City for several million, according to the town buzz. 5. Then King County DOT foisted a $500,000 to $1,000,000 fish bunker "roundabout" upon the local rural property owners that was totally not necessary. Water lines, phone lines, cable lines and power lines all had to be rerouted for this green nonsense. 6. Last but not least, was the taking of private property along SR164 and SE 416th by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs all with the help and encouragement of King County Council of course. No private property owner could ever do that. 7. I just heard from an Enumclaw business person, that the City of Enumclaw has "purchased" land and a lake in King County for a city park. They shoved out another private buyer that was promised the property, according to my source. II. The Rest Of the Story And here is the rest of the story. As I left the meeting I tried to shake hands with the Mayor before leaving and he was in a rage and told me I was too aggressive and stormed off without shaking my hand. I proceeded outside to discuss the meeting with others and then went to my vehicle to get some business cards. I was called over by the Enumclaw Mayor and an Enumclaw Police officer. The Mayor quickly left. The officer asked me what happen. I said what do you mean. He asked me if I had harassed or threatened anyone. I asked him to come back with me to over a half dozen rural property owner still discussing the meeting outside the Enumclaw City Hall. I asked them if I harassed or threatened anyone and they all said no. Then the officer asked me to come back into the city hall and I asked for a witness to come with me. This property owner was dismissed immediately against my request. The officer asked the Mayor, the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney and King County Facilities Management Karen Heidergott, what happen or to that effect. Karen responded that I was telling her that the rural people had guns and bullets and waved her hands. Mayor John Wise and Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Scott Johnson did not say a word. I told them to the effect this was a warning and not a threat, i.e. they turned the facts into a threat. These are the type of people who would charge you for telling them we have Second Amendment Rights out here in the rural areas. The officer and I left the meeting room and we talked some more about the meeting. Nothing more came of it and we both left. III. Why Property Owners and Businesses Leave Washington State Local, county and state government not only choose to ignore all warnings to back off, they intentionally misrepresent the urban and rural property land owners warnings, and distort our advise into threats, i.e. they threaten us. The arrogance, haughtiness and strong arming of these government servants has increased many fold through uncountable escalating breaches of the laws of the land and the will of the people, e.g. The 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court Kelo decision allowing City of New London to approve dozing over houses for commercial development. This taking of freedom creates a great opportunity for other rural counties to drop all of their unconstitutional building and remodeling fee and permit bureaucracy to attract fed up home owners and builders to leave the Puget Sound and even the State. This is only one of the reasons why Boeing corporate is pulling The Boeing Company out of the Washington State. In ten to 20 years the company will be entirely out of here. They were fed up with the socialists in this state running their airplane business into the ground. This is why they are slowly out sourcing the entire company off shore. Olympia just can't figure it out. All they know how to do is use more force. This behavior is not only beyond all the fundemental laws of the land, it is beyond the role and conduct of their office. Government is empowered to regulate themselves and protect us. They have now twisted that into regulating us and protecting themselves. Our bundle of unalienable rights, common law and natural law are increasingly perverted because government writes endless usurping and debased laws not chained to the U.S. Constitution and our natural rights. IV. No One Is Safe Ed Storm brought this excellent point up. No private property owner is safe anymore. Whether you are in your home, on your land, in your vehicle, you can be arrested, sued, jailed, destroyed in a relative short period of time because government and those who use it have all the force and they are Warning - (Random House Dictionary) 1. the act or utterance of a person or thing that warns 2. something that serves to warn, as a notice or signal 3. serving to warn, advise, caution, notice, signal Threat - (Random House Dictionary) 1. a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment 2. to be a menace or source of danger to The over regulating, legislating, judicating and administrating nature of our socialistic government has generated a strangle hold on all once free and sovereign state Citizens. These laws are all unconstitutional. Government, especially incorporated governments, no longer have any jurisdiction on our private property, including our homes, land, vehicles and families, not too mention our debauched educational system. During the contentious period in the Continental Congress before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the legendary Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said, "We must either hang together or we will hang separately." Only through unity in a time of crisis, Franklin insisted could the budding American Revolution survive. The spring of taking is being wound up so tight that the eventual unwinding of this debauchery will be the proverbial gun shot heard around the world. It is the battle of Lexington and Concord rural farmers against the British Regulars all over again, 232 years later. V. Perversion of the Fundemental Laws The perversion of the laws of the land start at the top and avalanche down from misguided and illegitimate legislation, judication and administration based on junk political science and junk politics. There are no fundemental laws that legitimize any taking, trespassing or taxing of private property. I have researched this subject for 4 years and as unbelievable as this simple statement sounds, it is true. I have put out 42 pages of information showing how the Rails to Trails programs are completely clouded. Yet this was never addressed at the meeting with King County and City of Enumclaw. These government bullies are not capable of listening or thinking beyond their green agenda. They can only dictate, threaten, force, fail to fully disclose the truth, keep everyone in the dark, fail to provide transparency, fail to provide a process for womb to tomb property owner involvement, fail to accept that one property owner has the right to stop the entire rail to trail project. Private property owners are not adequately informed or advised of their full rights. We need highly qualified land use experts and council with a full historical perspective of the development and debauchery of the laws. Property owners need expert legal representation to clarify the laws and the jurisdiction of local, county, state governments. The National Association of Reversionary Property Owners, Richard Welsh is one such expert on the Rails to Trails history of takings. He has informed me that he moved out of Washington State ten years ago because it became so perverted. The apathy of the people is beyond compare. King County government land grab attacks are made through the mail and not in person. e.g. "Dear Rail to Trail Land "Owner", sign here". Adjoining property values on rails to trails are severely impacted. The cities, counties and state refuse to address even this single issue of compensation. A 20 year study in Seattle, Washington on the conversion of a railroad ROW to a trail showed that the 300 properties along the trail had only a 31% increase in land value in the 8 years that the trail had been in place. These 300 properties border on a 20 mile long urban lake in Seattle and the average property (land) value is $198,000. In the same 8 years, inflation had gone up 67%, the average land value in the local county had gone up 146%, the average land value of the other properties on the same urban lake had gone up 206%, and the average land value of the next row of properties immediately above and behind, but not abutting, the trail had gone up 126%. As can be seen, the proximity of the trail has decreased the probable total value of these properties. In this case, the abutting property owners did not exert their property rights because the attorneys they hired after the abandonment were too incompetent to dig out the easement deeds and the court precedents. Urban trails such as this one are nothing more than strip parks, and parks normally lower property values for the abutting neighbors due to increased traffic counts, loss of privacy, and major and minor crimes. For a copy of the study, see NARPO's web site at: Here is an excellent historical overview of the debauchery. This is a must print and read to fully understand Rails to Trails takings. http://home.earthlink.net/~dick156/row.htm. I am being threatened with charges of speaking the truth, Paul Hiatt of Gig Harbor has served 3 months in jail and has spent 4 years of life defending himself in Pierce County District and Superior court on a nonsense charges of clearing his ditches and burning slash, Charles Strauss of King County has been brutalized along with his wife, thousands of private property owners are being harassed and sued and their lives destroyed because of illegitimate green legislation funding. This green funding and all funding from the federal and state government is unconstitutionally passing from an limited federal government jurisdiction of the territories to the states. This is one of the source of the problem. The other source is the unconstitutional legislation such as GMA that is forced upon the downstream communities and land owners. This is a total perversion of the fundemental laws of the land, the laws of nature and nature's God. VII. Urgent Solutions Needed 1. No further meetings on these rails to trails takings should be held without the proper expert representations for the private property owners adjacent to and within notice and visual distance to the proposed trails. The current state, county and city process is totally debauched, one sided and upside down. These are all green extreme premeditated operations that operate in the shadows for years preying on the private property owner victims one at a time. 2. Private property owners adjacent too and those within the noise and visual field of these proposed and existing rails to trails all need to have a veto vote on the trail. No foot should be laid on any trail until the private property owners review the situation and votes yea or nay. The owner of the land that the rail bed goes through must have a veto vote and be fully represented by expert council in the field of Rails to Trails law. There is a higher duty of all government employees to abide by their oath of office to protect the Constitution and private property. Private property is scared and is not a government commodity. 3. A moratorium of the Rails to Trails program in Washington State needs to be declared until an acceptable process is established to accomplished total involvement by the adjoining and nearby property owners. The current process is literally fraudulent. The rural property owners on just this little section of the proposed Foothills Rails to Trails program were being trespassed and encroached upon by government trail maintenance employees without their knowledge and without approval of the trail itself, county types just came in and started to clear brush on private property without a work. The level of debauchery of King County, Ron Sims, and all the 15,000 servants and the 25,000 State servants and all of the cities this trail touches is criminal. 4. I suggest the following groups be brought immediately to reestablish the legal boundaries and jurisdiction of each level of government and non government group, e.g. Rail to Trail takings, GMA, CAO, "Open Space", "Agricultural Preservation", zoning, property tax taking, etc. I suggest, the mission, in part, is to establish very clear boundaries of the government and non government groups and to clarify the rights of all of the affected private property owners. In the case of the Rails To Trails zealots they would help define and clarify the rights of those property owners abutting these trails of tears including but not limited to those private and business owners near the proposed and existing rails to trails program. Richard Welsh, Executive Director, The National Association of Reversionary Property Owners 6. Training programs need to be produced on the fundemental laws of the land, constitutional law, unalienable rights, natural law and common law Rails to Trails, zoning, taxes, and any taking of private property. This should be required training for all government employees especially those who are touching directly or indirectly any private or public property. I would like to suggest that the Evergreen Freedom Foundation be asked to assemble existing training material on this subject and produce program covering these topics. All of the above experts and others on this topic could be brought in to clarify the historical intention and ultimate perversion of the laws of the land so we can find ourselves back to the original founding trail head to freedom, liberty and our unalienable rights. 7. Sound Transit spent over $2 million of our money stealing a piece of private property that was worth around $500,000. The jury awarded the family $500,000. The family incurred costs near that total. This is insane. Eminent domain by definition is an abuse of power that is unnecessary. The exercise of this government power was never intended to be used or abuse without full cooperation of the property owner. Just because we have a power to take does not mean we use it. There are other non violent options, e.g. offer the property owner the highest commercial value for his property and then some depending on the level of urgency for the property. Never ever use force to extract private property from anyone. That is one of the oldest and most basic laws on the Book, i.e. "thou shalt not steal". http://home.earthlink.net/~dick156/row.htm. 8. If government and non government did their homework, we would not have any of these takings. It is much easier for government and those who use them to just pass endless legislation and let the illegitimate burden cascade down stream to the property owners. A cease and desist order or a cooling off period needs to be issued immediately on all Rails to Trails projects in this State until the above critical issues are fully resolved. Lives are being threatened and destroyed daily. 9. State, county and city governments can no longer pretend they are not threatening private property owners. The blood is flowing in many forms of financial, legal, emotional, marital & collecteral damage. 11. This suggested moratorium on all property related legislation past, present and future, will slow down the tyranny going on in the cities, counties and state. This will also slow down the increasing pressure to litigate property owners into bankruptcy and into further tax debt for the government. We must do what is counter intuitive to all of us, i.e. NOT fight it out in the courts, legislature and executive branches. 12. We have to move outside of the courts, executive offices and even the legislature for solutions. These branches are no longer effective. The titles, history and green trail group and green government takings are all extremely clouded. the green taking contractor, 15. This meeting with the City of Enumclaw Mayor and the two King County servants was a classic example of a green triangle charade. They tried to dominate the meeting, set the agenda, ram down their one sided view of the law and accuse anyone else who had the audacity to refute them by calling a spade a spade. Does this sound familiar, Senator Roach? It was deja'vu all over, I thought I was back in the meeting we had with the Department of Tyranny (DOT) meeting in the Enumclaw Libray with you and Representative Hurst, who very successfully flipped the meeting agenda back upon the DOT. It was a joy to watch this happen. This is the type of strong leadership we need at all these meetings. 16. We must demand that all state, county and city meeting involving any land use issues, public or private be fully represented for the private property owners. We must demand that government cannot meet with anyone unless Wherever possible these meeting should be aired on applicable TV channels so anyone can witness the actions of their government servants in "action". 18. Another "gate" we need along the path of those who take our land is the following. We need all land planned confiscations by cities, counties and the state to be listed on a public web site. They first tax us unconstitutionally and then use these illegitimate funds unconstitutionally without our knowing or approval. The new process must be totally transparent and constitutional. Said another way, all State Representatives and Senators should pass this email along to their corresponding cities, county administrations, Chamber of Commerce and farm and ranch and property owner groups They should have no in house legal sharks paid directly or indirectly by the tax base This country is dying from government and non government special interest tyranny. Ron Ewart, myself, Paul Hiatt, Charles Strouss, Chuck Pillion and uncountable other property owners have been threatened for speaking up and telling government the hard truth. The three branches of government and the sovereignty of the state as well as the sovereignty of the state Citizen have been breached into a Never Never land of taking. We literally have no free choice. They are demanding not only their constitutional rights back no forced unconstitutional direct taxes of any kind, " Why An Income Tax Is Not Necessary to Fund The U.S. Government? "- http://www.devvy.com/taxbook-html_20010617.html This is the end of the era of taking from private property owners. Americans are waking up by the hundreds and thousands daily This is a monumental undertaking, yet we have no choice, literally. "How long will we continue to force people into a life style that only suits some special interest group who wants your property, wages, home, land, vehicles, privacy, ad nausea for their own better use?
Sincerely,
Jack R. Venrick
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