Saving San Clemente: Rick Collins
Rick Collins bought a home in San Clemente, California 17 years ago because it was a great place to open a business and raise a family.
In the past few years, however, he's been feeling differently.
Seven years ago, Collins-along with several others in the community-added second stories to their homes, in compliance with the current city codes. However, three years later, several San Clemente neighbors began to press the city government to implement an "anti-mansion ordinance" or, as it came to be, a View Protection Ordinance.
"They started with a biased petition with a bunch of ineligible homeowners' names....Then, the petitioners lied to people, saying that if the ordinance did not go in place, people's property values would go down," Collins said. "In short, they wanted to protect their views, so they tried to get the city to change the rules after we bought our homes."
The issue is now tied up in court-but, unfortunately, it's only a small part of the assault on property rights in the San Clemente area.
Although the existing eminent domain ordinance in San Clemente prohibits the city government from using the power of eminent domain to take private property and hand it over to another private party, the City has gotten around this by abusing citizens' property rights in other ways-namely, with regulatory takings.
According to Wikipedia, a regulatory taking is "a situation in which a government regulates a property to such a degree that the regulation effectively amounts to an exercise of the government's eminent domain power without actually divesting the property's owner of title to the property."
For example, elected officials have an Open Space Ordinance on the books, which will prevent most new development in the city of San Clemente. There is also a Historical Landmark Ordinance in the works, in which a Historical Task Force will subjectively designate every "old" home in the city-and every home within 100-300 feet of it-as "historical," preventing improvement, not to mention scaring away prospective buyers.
Last November, a property rights initiative (Proposition 90) was put on the general election ballot to combat property rights abuses like this. Although the initiative was narrowly defeated in the state-wide election, 62 percent of San Clemente registered voters voted in favor of it. Based upon this public mandate, a similar amendment for San Clemente's eminent domain ordinance was presented to the City Council this summer.
However, elected officials in the area are reluctant to relinquish their power.
In fact, last time citizens joined together to protect their property rights by putting Proposition 90 on the ballot, political opponents did everything they could to defeat the measure-including donating large sums of money to the campaign fund to defeat the measure. The California State Association of Counties and the California Redevelopment Association each donated more than $500,000, and the League of California Cities donated more than $2,500,00, as well as loaned an additional $1,450,000. The League of California Cities even provides a regulatory takings manual to, apparently, inform officials in their member cities how to best abuse property rights.
Amid this widespread abuse of government power, Collins sees San Clemente Mayor G. Wayne Eggleston as one of the worst offenders. Eggleston has openly opposed citizens' efforts to overturn ordinances that abuse property rights, which puts him in a position of defying the will of the people and the majority of the city council.
"Our opponents and Mr. Eggleston will say and do anything to scare people into believing that development and property rights means there will be no open space and that every old building in town will be torn down," Collins said.
Collins said Eggleston has also violated California's Brown Act by attempting to block the public's access to participation in government.
As Collins continues to uncover more of Eggleston's wrongdoings, he and other citizens are building a case to recall him. Whatever happens, however, one thing is for sure: Rick Collins will not be sitting back and watching elected officials abuse their power. Property owners in San Clemente can thank him for his vigilant efforts to fight back and protect property rights in their city.
If you're interested in learning more about Rick Collins's efforts to secure sound property rights protection in San Clemente-and if you'd like to get involved, click here to contact him.
