I see a lot of confusion in understanding the purposes of Initiative Measure 933.

Because people know that I study legal politics, some have asked me about my take on the proposed law. I recommend reading the text of the actual initiative on page 22 of the Voters’ Pamphlet. It is not written in legalese, it states: A. Intent; B. What is protected; C. How it is applied. Upon reading, one will realize that all of the hype is unwarranted. I cannot see where it changes anything, except that the agency seizing the property must fairly compensate the owner for the loss. Since the beneficiary is presumably the public, the public should pay the compensation.

It seems silly to say that I-933 is proposed by the big developers, when you can see that the main opposition to I-933 is The Nature Conservancy. TNC is the largest real estate company in the world, and is a land bank for big developers. They depend on distressed sellers to sell them land that is about to be taken. They then sell it to the government or developers at a huge profit. An excellent expose of TNC can be found at this Web site: www.rangemagazine.com/specialreports/spr03_landlord.html entitled Nature’s Landlord. A good example of the tie between TNC and developers is our own Dino Rossi, previous Republican candidate for governor, real estate developer and boardmember of Washington TNC www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/contact/art6650.html .

Remember folks, the use of property is the property. If we lose the use or have to pay a fee to use it, it’s no longer a property right, but a privilege.

Pete Remington

South Bend