Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Another Oyster farm destroyed by the Government


Destroying the last Oyster farm in Oysterville - a tale of tyranny

Oysterville Sea Farms is the last oyster farm in Oysterville, but that hasn't stopped Pacific County government officials from trying to shut it down.

This situation began as a series of complaints from jealous competitors and a distant family member in 2011. Then, Pacific County Commissioners Lisa Ayers, Frank Wolfe, and Steve Rogers along with County Prosecutor Mark McClain and Central Planner Faith Taylor-Eldred dedicated enormous sums of money, political capital, time, and focus to harass, litigate, fine, and destroy Oysterville Sea Farms, a local family-run business.

There are similarities to the Drake's Bay Oyster Company's long and ultimately unsuccessful battle to survive the bureaucratic onslaught unleashed by the California Coastal Commission and the National Park Service, Department of Interior and various environmental groups. In the end Drake's Bay Oyster Company lost:
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian...

However, unlike Drake's Bay, Dan Driscoll's Oysterville Sea Farms is on private family-owned land, in Willapa Bay, where other large, commercial oyster farms operate unmolested by Pacific County.

Much of this harassment of Oysterville Sea Farms was code enforcement efforts to micro-manage the retail business. Despite licenses to operate, the county would attempt to dictate which products could be sold or not sold. The Washington State Department of Ecology would use the Shoreline Management Act and the planners would use zoning changes as excuses to shut down the business. Dan has been in court for 5 years and he has successfully prevailed on most challenges to his business, but the bureaucrats are relentless, and Pacific County is relentless.

If you want to learn more about Oysterville Sea Farms:
http://www.willabay.com/newindex.html

The Citizens Alliance for Property Rights believe that people have the right to make a living, run a business, and manage their property in a responsible manner free from abusive regulations, fines, fees, legal harassment, excessive taxation, and other government abuse. Bureaucratic overreach, as Pacific County demonstrates is harmful to our freedoms, our liberty, and a healthy community.

Please help Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (www.capr.us) expose more stories like this effort to save his family business so that we can work to stop abusive central planners and government bureaucrats from doing this to Dan. We would like to educate everyone so that property rights are recognized as the critical human right they are, and their necessity to the freedom and prosperity of future generations...

We shouldn't have to live in a society where a small family business can be whimsically destroyed just because a government bureaucracy wants to do so... that is what makes this story a tale of tyranny.

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