September 6, 2007
To:
The Honorable Judge Kathryn J.
Nelson
Pierce County Superior Court, Dept.
13
920 Tacoma Ave. S., Room
534
Tacoma, WA 98498
Honorable Judge Thomas
Larkin
Presiding Judge of Pierce County
Superior Court
Prosecuting Attorney Gerald A.
Horne
Pierce County PA Division
cc: Washington State Attorney General
via Fax & email
bcc: Property Owners and Freedom
Movement in Washington and America
I live on 10 acres outside of
Enumclaw, WA. I have come to know Paul Hiatt when he came to Citizen
Alliance For Property Rights for help.
Paul Hiatt is not only a good man, he is
a proud American who is passionate for American freedom and
liberty. He and his family have
been brutalized beyond any common sense. His treatment by Pierce County is
criminal. I and others have attended two of his prior hearings and
have spent some time with him, his brother and friends. I am
concerned there is an agenda by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Allen
Rose of unduly punishing Paul Hiatt for normal land maintenance. The dirty
details are attached herein and I will reframe from repeating them.
Paul Hiatt and his family and friends
have suffered enough for digging a ditch and burning debris on his land all of
which he had received DNR approval and the necessary permits. The Hiatt's
have lost everything to fight off his petty illegitimate
charge. Mr. Hiatt has been set up by a neighbor from hell and then
framed. He has already spent 60 days in jail for these trumpeted up
charges and then further denied pencil and paper.
Rural property owners are increasingly
being used as public examples by extreme political factions within all
levels of government. Excessive green regulation has strangled
common sense out of owning and working rural land, farming, ranching. This
has all been initiated by Olympia politicians who never take into consideration
the downstream consequences of their green extreme legislation. Thousands
of innocent rural property owners have lost their life savings, marriages
and property, to fight off, often for years, the local and county
governments from brutalizing them over common land and home use. A growing
number of county and states are engaging in this criminal
behavior.
The number of land use regulations are
out of control and growing exponentially upon small rural land owners with this
green fanaticism. It has become politically correct to shut
down public and private land use to satisfy the green extreme groups in
Puget Sound and in America. The penalties and laws have
become draconian. My land almost burned up and I almost lost my own
life fighting a fire caused by excessive land and water regulation on
my land. I refuse to do anything except the most simple tasks. Yet
the City of Enumclaw has taken two 100 acre ranches they are developing on
wet lands into close density housing. The City of Enumclaw also
took half of the Rainier Stables horse farm 5 minutes from me. The City of
Enumclaw is also working on taking our rural farm for their use.
There is a growing trend
of excessive and abusive regulation and punishment of innocent rural farm
and land owners for normal land use work. Property owners rights groups
are springing up all over the country to fight back. Paul Hiatt is only
one of thousands of innocent people who are being persecuted for simple land use
maintenance work. The rights to own and use your own private property are
well established throughout history. Our basic, common, natural and
constitutional rights are being systematically ignored by the government
and the green extreme groups.
I can tell you, there is a growing alarm
by many freedom groups that this abuse of basic private property use has
gone over the edge long ago. I have been studying the movement of this
trend of taking our freedoms for the last couple years. Our basic
rights have been confiscated so gradually and progressively that we do not
know we are strangling ourselves. Paul Hiatt and the thousands
of land owners are innocently being "burned at the stake" for normal
land maintenance work.
I have extracted some objectives of your
"State of the Court address" below for your review and recall. I would
like to suggest the case history of Mr. Allen Rose and others in the Pierce
County Court including Judge David Kenworthy looked into regarding a
history of overly abusive treatment and sentencing of rural property
owners. There is certainly a trend of abuse in King County
Department of Development & Environmental Services run by Stephanie Warden
and Executive Ron Sims.
"The primary tool used by the
Pierce County Superior Court to improve and hold itself accountable is its
Strategic Plan, which defines a set of goals that the judicial system works to
achieve. The theme of our current agenda, "becoming the best court in the state
of Washington," reflects our commitment to making Pierce County’s justice system
the best system possible, a goal that we recognize we can achieve only through
leadership and participation from the other two branches of government.
Our Strategic Agenda includes 11
major goals; I will briefly discuss a few of them today.
Another goal of our Strategic agenda calls for us to be more
accountable, in recognition of the fact that the public expects accountability
for government operations and administration. To this end we have been working
with the Tacoma Pierce County Bar Association to develop judicial performance
evaluations. The process will begin in March. Initially, lawyers and jurors will
be given an opportunity to assess our performance. It takes some courage to ask
people how you are doing, but more important is the commitment to act on what
you learn from the answers. We, at Superior Court, have that commitment.
Not only
are we working to be more accountable, we are working to be more transparent.
Several months ago we began examining files that had previously been sealed to
determine whether they should remain sealed. While we recognize private
interests that need protection, we also recognize that what we do must be open
to public inspection. Our courtrooms are open, and we invite you to come and
observe justice in action. "
Also I would like to direct your
attention to the attached "Advisory Memorandum Avoiding Unconstitutional Takings
Of Private Property" sent out by Washington State Attorney General Rod McKenna
in December 2006. You may want to ask yourself, why Attorney General
McKenna took the time and resources to have this 48 page document written and
published.
It is my opinion these clear
and strong guidelines in the above Advisory Memorandum have been violated by
Pierce County Court regarding Mr. Paul Hiatt. I have no doubt they
are violated in King County where I live. My next question I will be
asking our Attorney General's office, the Washington State Legislature and
the Governor's office, is the following.
- Is there a growing and
excessive trend of taking and abusing rural property owners for
normal land use in all the counties in Washington State, especially the
environmental extreme run counties in and around the Puget
Sound?
I respectfully ask you to dismiss
all of these vindictive charges against Paul Hiatt.
Sincerely,
John R. Venrick
41250 250th Ave
Enumclaw, WA 98022
Citizens Alliance for Property
Rights
National Association for Rural Land
Owners
American Policy Center
Evergreen Freedom
Foundation
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