Measure 37 victory came at a price

The Supreme Court victory has been a special moment for 93-year old widow and chief petitioner Dorothy English. She has fought with the county for 30 years to win back the property rights they stole from her when she bought it. Dorothy English bought her land 50 years ago with extra land so a home could be built for each of her children. It is unfortunate that one of her sons passed away last year and never lived to see her mom win, and never was able to build a home next to his mom.

This is a similar scenario to the famous U.S. Supreme Court property rights case involving John Dolan — a Tigard plumbing store owner (another Oregonians In Action victory case). The City of Tigard dragged this case on for ten years and John Dolan passed away never seeing his victory at the Supreme Court. To make matters worse, the Dolan family had to go back into court because the City tried to avoid paying the compensation costs as awarded by the courts.

Government has a cold ability to ignore its own people, and then when the people protest, government uses its big treasure chest and pool of lawyers to drag the poor citizens through hell and high expenses for a good portion of their lives. You know the liberals didn’t care when the environmentalist 1000 Friends of Oregon tried sue Dorothy English for their attorney fees (but later backed out).

What happened in Oregon was that good people died while government refused to budge on the most basic matters. To the English family and the Dolan family — they deserved better from our democracy. – Jason Williams