Color Country Issue Settled

It seems that there is no issue more calculated to bring out raw emotions in Color Country than real estate values. That probably includes historically important issues like the virtue of daughters and being convinced that your God hates your neighbor because he eats something God doesn’t like.

Recently, I wrote about clotheslines. Some people hate them because they believe they depress real estate values.

Here in Color Country, we recently had the biggest turnout for a public meeting that I have seen since I moved here. The issue: the right to have gated communities. Again, some people were convinced that the value of their real estate was being threatened.

The crash in real estate values has had a dramatic impact. Back before the crash, one of the favorite things people would talk about was how much their house was worth. “Hi, Sam! George’s house just sold for $673 thou so that makes mine worth another five figures! Hot enough for ya?”

So a case recently settled by the Utah Supreme Court makes a big difference here since some of the most valuable land around borders the relatively scarce rivers, such as the Virgin.

The case happened up north however. It seems that a property owner on the Weber River had a local lawman arrest some rafters for touching the bottom of the river. The reasoning is that ‘we the people’ might own the water, but he owned the river bottom and rafters can’t touch his property. The Morgan County Justice Court agreed with the landowner. (Surprise, surprise!) But the Utah Supreme Court in an amazing demonstration that they actually do understand the phrase “public welfare” ruled that,

“We hold that the scope of the easement provides the public the right to float, hunt, fish, and participate in all lawful activities that utilize the water. We further hold that the public has the right to touch privately owned beds of state waters in ways incidental to all recreational rights provided for in the easement, so long as they do so reasonably and cause no unnecessary injury to the landowner.”

There are two versions of Woody Guthrie’s great folk song, “This land is your land, this land is my land.” Landowners like this version:

This land ain’t your land;
This land is my land;
Get the hell off my land;
Go and find your own land.

But in 1944, Woody himself sang this verse instead.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.