7-23-16 PLF Fights For Freedom

One of our public service sponsors continues to be especially active in defending the frontier of freedom against federal overreach. Many of Pacific Legal Foundation’s precedents apply to the energy industries indirectly while only appearing to directly affect the freedom and rights of a single landowner. Accordingly, we urge our readers to support PLF along with its faithful — and highly successful — efforts to preserve constitutional protections for both corporate and individual citizens. -dh

Homeowners’ lawsuit: County’s beach-sign ban flouts First Amendment

The owners of a beachfront home sued Walton County for banning signs on private beach property — including the signs against trespassing that the homeowners have installed on their privately owned beach property to safeguard their privacy, personal safety, and property rights. The county’s new blanket ban of signs on private beach property violates landowners’ First Amendment free-speech rights, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court by Edward and DeLanie Goodwin.

DeLanie and Edward Goodwin

“The Goodwins have a First Amendment right to speak — and to use signs as a means of speech, a way to convey the message that their beach is not public, and that they value and insist on their property rights,” said PLF Principal Attorney

J. David Breemer. “The county is robbing them of that fundamental right of free speech. Denying them the use of signs denies them the ability to let the public and the county itself know that their land is private and trespassing will not be allowed.”

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PLF Fights For Homeowners’ Free-Speech Rights In Florida

PLF Director of Communications Harold Johnson speaks with PLF Principal AttorneyJ. David Breemer and his client Edward Goodwin about how the County of Walton in Florida is denying Goodwin’s right to free-speech by banning beach-signs on his property.

To safeguard their privacy, personal security, and property rights, they put up two small “Private Property” signs, and a third small sign that says, “If the County Wants My Private Beach for Public Use, It Must Pay Me For It — U.S. Constitution.”

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Best of PLF’s Liberty Blog

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally removed the lesser prairie chicken — a species widely distributed across Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, including key areas for energy development — from the Endangered Species Act’s threatened list. The delisting was the result of a lawsuit against the agency, challenging its decision to give short shrift to voluntary conservation programs developed by states and private landowners. After losing in the district court, the Service decided to forego its appeal.

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California high court to decide if its bad law remains a dead letter

This week the California Supreme Court granted our application and accepted our brief in Scher v. Burke. In the brief, we argue that the California Supreme Court should reject arguments that the court should resuscitate California’s short-sighted doctrine of implied-in-law public dedication. Under California’s now-defunct doctrine of implied-in-law public dedication, courts held, essentially, that if the general public uses private property for five years, the public gets a right to keep on using that property, forever. The problem with the doctrine is that it disregards whether the owner actually intends to permanently give up — or dedicate — his or her property to the public or, rather, merely intends to allow the public to use it with permission.

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State Supreme Court to review case that could create loophole around Proposition 218

The 4th District Court in California in a recent court case may have created a loophole to get around Proposition 218. Now the state Supreme Court has agreed to review it. Proposition 218 was approved by voters in 1996 to close a special taxes and assessment loophole. “The loophole will give local entities a way to avoid a taxpayer vote in some instances,” PLF Principal Attorney Meriem Hubbard told theNorthern California Record.

“The case should concern all Californians who pay taxes, fees, assessments, levies, charges, or extractions. Californians have worked hard to obtain the right to vote on new taxes and tax increases, adopting several initiatives which are now included in our state constitution.”

About the Author: wpnorthern

Dave Harbour, publisher of Northern Gas Pipelines, is a former Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, a Commissioner Emeritus of NARUC, NARUC's Official Representative to IOGCC and Vice Chairman of NARUC's Gas Committee. He served as Gas Committee Chairman of the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners. He also served as commissioner of the Anchorage Bicentennial Commission and the Anchorage Heritage Land Bank Commission. He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree: English, at Colorado State University, a Master of Science Degree: Communications-Journalism at Murray State University and graduated from Utility Regulatory School for Commissioners at Michigan State University. He served as a Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at Alaska Pacific University, taught bank marketing classes at the University of Alaska and was an English teacher at Los Alamos High School. Harbour served in ranks of Private - Captain during a 4-year assignment with the Army in Korea, Idaho, Georgia and Fort Meade and received the Meritorious Service Medal among other commendations. Harbour is also a past Chairman of the Alaska Council on Economic Education, the Alaska Oil & Gas Association Government Affairs Committee, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the Export Council of Alaska and the Department of Commerce's District Export Council. He is a past President of the Alaska Press Club, American Bald Eagle Foundation, Consumer Energy Alliance-Alaska and Common Sense for Alaska. Harbour was instrumental in founding the American Bald Eagle Research Institute (UAS), the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the Downtown Anchorage Business Partnership, and Arctic Power. He also served as CEO of several small Alaska organizations, including the Anchorage Parking Authority and Action Security, Inc. Harbour is also Chairman Emeritus of the Alaska Oil & Gas Congress. Harbour's wife, Nancy, is a professional, performing arts administrator and his three boys, Todd, Benjamin and William work in the fields of environmental management, energy marketing and medicine.