[Vision2020] They're coming to take your land--Follow ourleaderJeffHarkins!

[Donovan Arnold]

Mr. Fiat writes,

"Mr. Arnold,
I cannot help but detect a condescending air in the
way you  responded to, or should I say dismissed,
Janice's concerns."

Sorry you interpreted it that way. I not sure how you detected condescension 
in the air over here. But OK, I will take your word for it, I am not good at 
picking up on a person's attitudes and personal feelings in person, and must 
less on line over an email. If Janice felt such air, I offer my apologizes 
to her.


"I get the sense that you feel unduly burdened with the
task of  enlightening those among us whom you deem
ignorant.  Surely, with your remarkable level of
experience in seemingly all things, you must be
contributing a great deal to the community."

OK, I see where you are going with this email.

  "Too bad you weren't holding the hands of the commissioners
when they drew up the Land Use Ordinance revisions in
a way that set everyone up for confusion, frustration
and community division."

Recodification is not content based legislation it is only clerical.

"So much of the bad feelings we are now dealing with might likely have been 
averted by simply presenting the proposed code revisions by using the 
familiar strike through and underline
revision format."

This doesn't work when you recodify documents. It would actually be more 
confusing. Especially if you are retitling. Not to mention this would most 
likely violate Idaho State Statue.


"Even the simple country folk could figure out what that means."

You would not be very simple if you figure out how to recodify the entire 
land use ordinances and doing it that way. I have never met anyone that 
could do that in any meaningful way. When you recodify and make grammar 
changes, it just doesn't work, just lots of paper work with no benefit to 
the individuals.

"By not including the additions and deletions to the existing code in the
'Rough Draft' seems almost an intentional effort to alienate those among our 
neighbors who do not have the benefit of a B.S. in political science such as 
yourself."

No, it saved about 500 hours of work. It is better use of taxpayer dollars 
to print off the original and the new and have people make comparisons. And 
my Political Science degree has nothing to do with this. I have written laws 
and policies like this for the University and recodifed over 300 pages of 
documentation. It doesn't change the laws, it just rearranges them. There is 
nothing to debate, or to bring to the people. It is just lots of technical 
garbage that is boring and time consuming. There has been many times when I 
have recodified laws and someone that reads the bill gets all excited about 
the content of bill.

Recodification is basically the renumbering of the laws that have already 
been passed. You are organizing them, and putting them in order. Over the 
years, the laws get placed in the wrong order, or are better off under one 
title instead of another. Sometimes the numbers are messed up and not using 
the right order. I have seen laws with the same number, or the decimal in 
the wrong place, So imagine you are trying to write a law that changes the 
number 40.01.02 to be 38.07.48. The reason for this is because it would be 
better off in that series of laws. Let us just say that law has to do with 
the type of feed you can give to a cow. Now, pretend that law has to be 
moved for clerical and technical reasons, to be with the other 25 cattle 
feed laws.  So I rewrite the law exactly the same, but with only the number 
different. Let us then imagine that I make about 2089 of these changes just 
renumbering and moving them around. Rather then passing them in 2089 bills, 
which would take about 50 weeks of non-stop work and halting other work, I 
put it in one bill. While it is a bill, someone comes along and states they 
don't like many of the laws, and tells his friends that they are passing 
lots of new legislation that is going to limit their rights. Then they all 
show up at the meeting and start asking you to explain why you making all 
these changes, and how come they are not included in the legal process and 
they want to give input on the legislation, and 200 of them disagree with 
the type of feed in law 38.07.48. and don't understand 02.26.39 and 90.04.03 
is an unclear law. And about 12,000 other people asking 500 questions and 
want every thing and every law in the 2089 rehashed and debated.

By stopping this bill recodifying the law you are not changing anything, or 
any law! You are simple preventing people from more easily finding all laws 
dealing with cattle feed that would be in one place of the law instead of 
different 75 places because 75 different laws were passed over the last 50 
years and the other legislatures put them there and your secretary is having 
a hard timing answering farmer Brown's questions about cattle feed 
regulations.

I say let the members of the board retile and order the laws. Then you can 
better debate the ones that are giving you trouble. But let the poor people 
on the board put the law in some type of ordered document first.


"Like it or not, all property owners potentially effected by the ordinance 
changes deserve a chance to give input into the process that will place 
restrictions on what they can do with their land.  "Government by the 
people, for the people" I think I heard somewhere once."

John Locke said, a "government of all the people, by all the people, and for 
all the people." And Abraham Lincoln paraphrased him in saying, "a 
government of the people, by the people, for the people. I could not agree 
more either. If people want to debate that law 10.25.62 should be 52.29.18 
instead they may. And if they want to debate the wording of the law they can 
do that to.

  "Regrettably, many just folksland owners in Latah County feel 
unrepresented, disrespected and even discounted because they have not had 
their concerns considerately addressed."

Well, maybe that is because of the people that they elect to office. Maybe 
it is because they elect people based on their view of gay marriage and 
Christ rather than their view of democracy and protecting US production. It 
boggles my mind that people vote for people like Bush that practice laws 
that drive the US farmer out of business and ship jobs overseas then get mad 
when he passes laws that do this.

  "Perhaps you should offer your infinitely capable self up in public 
service, to advocate for the people who feel they have been done a wrong 
turn by the commissioners entrusted to serve our best interests?"

The people are not being misled by the county commissioners. I like Tom and 
Jack, a lot. While I disagree with Jack's political leanings and voted 
against him for only that reason, he is a good man. And Tom is great, I 
think he should be chair, and I agree 95% of time with him. I do have 
misgivings about the honestly and integrity of Mr. Kimmel, but he is still a 
competent administrator when you take out the corruption factor.  I think 
the landowners are just confused because they are listening to Mr. Harkins 
and he is misleading them because he doesn't understand that the law is just 
recodified, not changed. But he craves the power, and the position of County 
Commissioner. Why do you think Tom and Jack, both farmers and decent men 
liked by both Democrats and Republicans, would be trying to ruin their farms 
and their neighbors' farms? Does that make sense to you? Jack grew up in 
Troy, and loves everyone in this county, and I for one do not believe that 
man is out to ruin his friends, family and neighbors. I don't buy that! And 
that is what Mr. Harkins is trying to sell you.



That might be a more constructive approach than assuring people that their 
concerns are "stupid".

Non-land owners do not have a monopoly on the stupid people. Law of 
statistics and the bell curve shows 16% of all people are at least 1.5 
standard deviations below the standard mean of intelligence and thus will 
just about fall for anything. One guy on here didn't know what the 
definition of animal was. Another one thought that toxic waste dumping was 
OK. But the only real stupid ones are the ones that believe Mr. Harkins BS 
that Jack and Tom are out to ruin them. I think you have to be pretty clever 
to stay in the farming industry if Bush is your President. Opening the 
market up to the world market that doesn’t have the same environmental 
regulations as us, and quality of food, has seriously hindered the 
profitability of farming in America to the point that I am surprised that 
there are still so many trying to make a living at it.

"Somewhere else in the postings this month, it was explained that having a 
land use code compendium in one handy, complete package would benefit 
landowners by virtue of the convenience factor.  Where has that oncern for 
landowner assistance and enlightenment
gone?"

That is EXACTLY what his new Land Use Ordinance is, and what you guys are 
blocking and I wish you would stop doing.

"Out of curiosity, just how many cattle could I keep if
I owned one square mile?"

Depends on how many you had. If you had 640 or less, all of them.

Would all those cattle have
to have free access to all of that acreage at all
times?

Not according to county law

  Or could I keep my quota of cattle in
separately fenced pasture areas throughout my
property, grazed on a rotational schedule?

The math would not work unless you had less than the 640 cattle.

"I must say, it is my pleasure to be a good steward of the
land and install adequate fencing to protect the
waterways from the damage grazing livestock can do."

Raising cattle is not being a good steward to the land, but my stomach 
thanks you for providing it with a supply of juicy cheeseburgers. :)


"I am strangely able to comprehend the idea that we all
live downstream."

To bad Paradise Creek is to acidic to provide the natural life it which it 
once contained.

Take Care,

Donovan J Arnold