Ad usum proprium

Gorge Property Rights Activists Stick Together As GLUE

By Dan Richardson, 10-09-06

The Dalles Chronicle has reported that the usual activists, the property rights rebels against the crushing might of the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area, have transmogrified. That’s right, Gorge Landowners United is no more. Now, the activists rally under the banner of Gorge Land Use Equity.

GLUE. As in, sticks like. As in, they’re all over the property rights front, struggling to right the wrongs foisted on hapless property owners by the over-weaning Gorge Commission, and they’re not going anywhere, thank you very much.

Heroes, really. That’s how I think of them. Brave souls like Steven B. Andersen, a private property consultant from Mosier; resort-owners Geoff Thompson and Angelo Simione of Corbett; letter-writer extraordinaire Bobbie Miller of The Dalles; and activist Rita Swyers of Hood River.

Each has a story to tell about standing up to The Man. (Or, really, since the Gorge Commission’s most recent and past executive director have been women, and since the patron saint of the pro-planning Friends of the Columbia Gorge is also female, The Woman.) And now, they’re telling them loud and clear.

(Okay, actually, they formed GLUE back in July and didn’t really tell anyone in, like, the media.)

But they have a common voice. From GLUE’s Internet manifesto:

“Regulatory power has exceeded its authority and has established land use prohibitions and restrictions that have deprived affected Gorge landholders of the reasonable use of their property without compensation and adversely affected all Gorge residents by inhibiting reasonable economic development necessary to their future.”

You don’t have a job? It’s the National Scenic Area’s fault. You can’t open a gravel pit next to the river? Yep. The prohibitionists strike again.

But fear not: GLUE is not from the government, and it’s here to help.

One thing I didn’t notice on the GLUE web site: A motto. A rallying cry. That would be a useful, unifying thing, I think. If it were in Latin, it could add some pizzazz, too, a sense of sophistication. Now, I know you smart-acres would suggest “ad captandum vulgus,” and that does possess a certain ring. (What a snappy bumper sticker!) But in truth, GLUE’s motto really ought to be “ad usum proprium.”

Ad usum proprium. For one’s own use.

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