I'm the most fakest angriest posterest guy here. Stop stealing my act, because I'm just joshing! Give the 1% guy his swimming pool!
Arrogant transplanted Californian attorneys, and I'd love to see him do 6 months in jail and be disbarred for intentionally violating the law. 7 or 8 years ago another arrogant transplanted Californian attorney actually stole a creek from his neighbor here in Beautiful Central Oregon. He re-routed it through his hillside yard and spent over $50,000 to make it into a grandiose water feature, leaving his neighbor with a mudslide where the creek used to be. He was caught early on and warned by the county but chose to ignore them and finished the job, even bragging about it in the press. He eventually faced federal charges, had to pay to restore the creek to it's natural path, had to pay his neighbor for the damages, was fined something like $200,000 in addition, and sent to prison for a year (mostly for contempt of court orders). This guy is probably his brother.
Conflicting thoughts: How can a swimming pool damage wetlands? It's even wetter than the wetlands. Buy a pet seagull and it'll be better than a beach. Why isn't the construction company partially liable? Why did that company proceed without seeing a permit? Lawyers are people who show no mercy and put people into jail for disobeying an arbitrary set of rules called law. This lawyer says he ignored the law because a politician verbally advised him to. Being a lawyer, he's supposed to follow a higher standard than that.
don't live in a community with a home owners association. or where there are a lot of cracka azz crackaz because they always be spyin on yo shit.
I remember the Bea house i the Columbia Gorge Nations Scenic Area. A California contractor put in plans to build a house there and it was all proper- 150' set back from the bluff (or whatever it was), one story.... all according to the rules. When he started building it, it was 3 stories and about 25' from the bluff... anyway he got his ass kicked repeatedly until his attorney found a liberal judge to give him everything he wanted. http://www.columbian.com/photos/2011/jul/01/24954/
Kinda like a few different Mark Wattles (former CEO of Hollywood Entertainment). I remember he added some big boulders along a beachy stretch of the Willamette River to try to make it his own private beach, or something along those lines. He got into a pretty big battle over that. I vaguely remember some issues with his Canby property, too, but I don't care enough to google it.
The pool, and area around it no longer have any resemblance to a wetlands. Yes, there is water, but no hydric soils, no wetlands floura. May or may not still have high ground water elevation. Having 2 out of 3 of these things is what defines a wetland. (I get that you're joking, but a swimming pool clearly does not function in any way like a wetlands.) Also, I don't know the specifics, but if the pool/patio/fill separated what was previously a contiguous wetland, that would be another big concern to the City. (Turning a larger wetland into two smaller ones.) He probably didn't get the wetlands permit, because it is an onerous, time consuming process involving the Dept. of State Lands and the US Army Corps of Engineers. They don't have much of a sense of humor if their processes are ignored, and as an attorney he knows that. In order to get a permit to do the work, he would have probably had to mitigate the impact on the wetland. That would mean buying mitigation credits from a wetlands bank....at (at least) $50,000 per acre of impact. It is not uncommon for a contractor to have a provision in their contract that the owner is responsible for all permits. If the contractor isn't in hot water over this, I'd guess that is what happened. This may be the first time I've ever heard of someone that believes that lawyers are supposed to follow a higher standard. My experience is, mostly, that lawyers do just the opposite. Go Blazers
Oldguy droppin' some serious knowledge in his post. As for lawyers supposed to follow a higher standard.... it's true - they absolutely are. Just like CPA's, it's part of their testing and becoming certified/barred, etc. They are sworn and bound to it. Like many people with a little power that are supposed to adhere to a higher standard..... their standards are often lower than those of the general public.
