By Tim Frank
Sierra Club California Advocate
Sierra Club California's top priority for this June election is to defeat Prop 98 and to help pass Prop 99. The first of these, Prop 98, is a constitutional amendment generated by the same special-interest-funded 'property rights' groups that have been working for years to wipe out environmental protections under the guise of 'eminent domain reform.' (These groups sponsored the environmentally destructive Prop 90 in 2006, which Californians defeated.)
Apartment owners have provided much of the funding for Prop 98, so it is no surprise that the measure would ban many renters' protections, such as a requirement for fair return of rental deposits. Public support for such renters' protections is deep and cuts across all ideological and class boundaries, so the campaign to defeat Prop 98 will focus lots of attention on these. But there is much more at stake.
98 would imbed in the constitution a provision which would allow a property owner to sue to obtain compensation for, and /or to invalidate, regulation that imposes costs on the owner - regardless of whether the regulated activity is a nuisance, a threat to public health or safety, or harmful to the environment - if the regulation would provide economic benefit to one or more persons. Since nearly all regulation provides an economic benefit to some private person, most regulation of property would be put at risk.
Ordinary zoning rules, such as restrictions on development of polluting industry or adult businesses, clearly provide economic benefits to area residents, and so would be put in jeopardy. Safeguards that protect coastal areas, forestland, farmland or cultural and historic sites would be put at risk too, and so would curbs on greenhouse gas emissions.
Voting no on Prop 98 may be your most important contribution to the environment this June, but we would also ask you to vote for Prop 99 - a real eminent domain reform measure that would protect homeowners without the hidden agendas and adverse consequences of Prop 98. Prop 99 would limit the government's ability to use eminent domain to take a home for transfer to a private developer. It would constitutionally protect homeowners without jeopardizing California's environmental laws or renter protections, and would take away the excuse of extreme property rights advocates to run deceptive measures like Prop 98.
The Sierra Club is opposing Prop 98 and supporting Prop 99, and we need your help to spread the world. Go to www.no98yes99.com to find out more about these competing propositions and to learn how you can get involved.