Property Rights Bill Packs House Forty Sign Up To Testify; Measure To Get More Study

Opponents say Rep. Jim Kempton’s legislation on government regulations and property rights is a bill sure to enrich lawyers because of its complexity.

Sponsors, including Kempton, R-Albion, say it’s a measure to protect property owners from government actions that cut the value of their property with no way for them to recover that lost value.

After a hearing Monday, the House State Affairs Committee was no closer to resolution. Rep. Ron Crane, R-Caldwell, State Affairs chairman, sent the proposal to a subcommittee headed by Rep. Paul Kjellander, R-Boise, for more study.

The bill sets up a mechanism whereby property owners can claim damages from government if an action or regulation devalues their property.

At present, if a person’s property is 100 percent damaged by government action, such as the building of a road, that person will be paid, Kempton said.

But if the loss is less than 100 percent, it does not amount to a government “taking” and nothing can be done.

Crane said more than 40 people signed up to speak on the bill and they would be given an opportunity to testify before the subcommittee.

During Monday’s testimony, Coeur d’Alene attorney Jerry Mason told the committee the bill “contains more words than the entire United States Constitution and all of its amendments.”

Speaking for the Idaho associations of cities and counties, Mason called the bill “radical” and said it “doesn’t square with the way things are in this state.” Idaho already grants broad rights to those who secure permits to develop their land, he said.

Among those who didn’t get a chance to testify Monday was Kootenai County Commissioner Dick Compton. Compton said he opposed the bill because it would take authority over land-use decisions away from locally elected officials, giving it to special juries.

“They’re not accountable to the people at all, and I don’t think that’s good legislation,” he said.

Crane said it was likely the extremely complex proposal would be held for study after the Legislature adjourns.

Maintenance money

Citing insistent pressure on state revenues, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee on Monday called for more cash to maintain nearly 2,000 state-owned buildings.

“We’re never putting enough money in the capital budget to do what needs to be done,” Republican Atwell Parry of Melba told his colleagues on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

“We just barely stay even,” the veteran budget writer admitted. “I would hope that sometime we could find a couple of million dollars more to put into the building fund.”

But Parry conceded his search through the state’s finances over the years has failed to turn up a source for extra money.

Public Works Director Larry Osgood acknowledged the problem facing the panel as he outlined Gov. Phil Batt’s proposal to earmark $12 million for maintenance and repair of the state’s building inventory worth $1.2 billion.

Even with what is about another $12 million in maintenance money spread through individual state agency budgets, the 2 percent of value earmarked for building upkeep falls short of the standard 3 percent.

“And some experts are even going as high as 5 percent,” Osgood said.

With prospects dim that lawmakers would raise sales or other taxes to generate new cash for building maintenance, Parry suggested that sales tax exemptions might be a target. But he admitted that unless all the exemptions were targeted for repeal, the few that might be picked off individually are not enough to make it worth the trouble.

Tobacco licensing

The Senate’s leadership committee has cleared the way for what could be a major confrontation over a licensing scheme for tobacco retailers intended to severely restrict the access minors have to cigarettes.

The State Affairs Committee voted unanimously on Monday to send the legislation sponsored by the state Parent-Teacher Association to the full Senate but on the condition that it can be radically changed before a final floor vote.

The decision came after dozen of people spent three hours decrying the fact that juveniles are using tobacco at what they agreed was an alarming rate but disagreeing over whether the significant revisions to last year’s attack on juvenile access to tobacco are the answers.

“The bill has a long way to go,” Committee Chairman John Hansen, R-Idaho Falls, said. “I’m in favor of licensing, but whether this is the right one … I don’t yet know.”

Advocates led by Caryn Esplan of the state PTA maintained that while the current law makes it illegal to sell tobacco to minors, there is no cash for enforcement, which is critical to bringing down juvenile use of tobacco. They contend the $55 annual license fee will generate the money to pay for two random inspections of every licensee annually.

But skeptics, wondering what a Republicandominated committee was doing supporting legislation that imposes more government regulation and licensing on business, objected to the new licensing requirements and contended the state should get tough with the juveniles who are obtaining tobacco.