| When I was a child growing up in Everett, the beaches of Washington State were mostly clear of marinas and private beaches. Since then, developers have been selling these beaches to private owners, who build bulkheads and marinas and put up “Private Property” signs.
The U.S. Supreme Court, the Washington Supreme Court, and many constitutional documents going all the way back to the Magna Carta, state that beaches and shorelines are the property of the people. No developer can own them, no developer can sell them. If you went to New York, and someone offered to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, you would of course realize that the bridge is public property, and anyone who tried to sell it you was a scam artist. If someone “buys” a beach, this person has been sold the Brooklyn Bridge. He or she has been cheated, and given good money for what cannot be owned.
All those people who gathered in the Kitsap Fairgrounds to demand rights to public property should become very angry at being duped, and if they must hire lawyers, they should put together a class-action suit against the developers who cheated them by selling them public shorelines.
Then, once they have focused the courts upon their own misuse of public property and have been ordered to vacate it, they will have the money that they will need to remove those illegal bulkheads and private property signs from the beaches and shorelines.
As a local business woman, I really don’t like to see the citizens and businesses set up for an expensive lawsuit that cannot be won, and will only make the lawyers happy. I would rather have citizens spending money with me and my business colleagues in Kitsap County and not giving it to lawyers.
Donna Barr
Bremerton. |
