OLYMPIA…Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, tried again today to bring his bill to protect property owners before the Senate for a vote. The motion was defeated by majority Democrats.

Senate Bill 6388, which was not given a public hearing in the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee, puts into statute very specific language as to what constitutes public use and declares: “No government shall take or damage private land or any interest in real property that is not to be used for the construction of a public use facility or the provision of a public service necessary to protect public health and safety.”

Benton introduced his bill because the Washington State Supreme Court has issued decisions that allow privately owned land to be taken on a flimsy and abusive construction of “public use.”

Among those decisions:

In the Matter of the Petition of the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority – the court allowed the taking of more land than was needed for the Pioneer Square Monorail station to be used for construction staging and employee parking. The land was to be sold at the end of the project for private development.

Miller v. Tacoma – the court allowed unblighted property to be swept into a “blighted area” designation and transferred to private use as part of a community renewal development project.

Washington State Convention & Trade Center v. Evans – the court created an “incidental private use” that judicially repealed the absolute state constitutional prohibition against taking private property for private use.

“I have said before and I’ll say it again, if this Legislature adjourns without protecting property owners from these kinds of court rulings, it will be the biggest tragedy of the session,” Benton said. “I wonder what the people will say when they find out we went home without even taking one small step to protect them from losing their property to some government entity only to have it sold for private development.”

For more information contact:
Penny Drost at (360) 786-7522 or penny.drost@leg.wa.gov