Personal Property Rights?

A lifelong friend of mine is asking for help. Ray Robinson is one of the most creative, honest, caring and intelligent humans I've ever had the honor of knowing. He grew up in a railroad family. His Father and Grandfather were lifelong engineers for Southern Pacific and Ray was a brakeman/conductor for 16 years. His love for the Railroad is legendary.

As long as I've know him, he's had a lifelong dream of building his own personal hobby real Railroad and in 1972 he started collecting track and wheels for his dream quarter scale railroad. In 1970 he built a HO railroad running throughout his home up near the ceiling on the walls. Well, in 1996 he was able to buy 41 acres up in Oregon with this project in mind, about as far away from neighbors as possible to not have any problems arise from bothering people in any way.

For approximately 12 years his wife and himself, with the help of hundreds of volunteers labored unimaginable hours to make this grand dream of his come alive and to see it done. They spent pretty much every cent they earned all those years to make this happen. The volunteers who mostly are other Railroad buffs came from all over the land after hearing about the scale and scope of his project. Upon arriving and meeting Ray, they knew they were doing something that would be a lasting tribute to the entire Railroad legacy, which would also be fun and they could all be kids again in the process.

I want to make something perfectly clear here and now. This has not been some kind of willy nilly thrown together project. Ray is a landscape contractor and used nothing but professional detail for the sake of his beautiful land and the lakes and streams it impacted, built with extreme care to not adversely impact these features in any way whatsoever.

After finally completing this grand dream and driving the "Golden Spike" in October of 2007, with hundreds of well wishers, Newspapers and TV stations on hand, they all celebrated in style and of course went on rides on the railroad. A grand time was had by all it looked like everything was going to be just fine. In all this time, with all the weekend construction, lots of Volunteers coming and going around Ray's property, never was there a complaint from anyone. What the Robinson's did was turn an old 1885 Homestead, where they had run cattle for 73 years before they bought the place, into a landscaped park for fish and wildlife that you could appreciate with a train ride. They don't allow any fishing or hunting on their land which is totally surrounded by National Forest.

In fact as word spread around the country about this Railroad, most of the local Newspapers and Television Companies naturally sent out reporters and cameras to try and capture such a wonderful accomplishment hidden out in the forested lands of such a freedom loving state such as Oregon is renowned for. Oregon Public Broadcasting and home and Garden TV both did TV specials on their railroad and it was aired by OPB in Oregon, Washington and Idaho and Worldwide by HFTV.

Well as most truly wonderful and free stories like this one are, here's where it all of the sudden turned potentially disastrous. You have heard that "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" and it certainly was true for the Robinsons. Despite being in Local Newspapers and on Local TV for all those years, Some local county worker, you know.......the kind we are all paying for with our hard earned taxes, finally somehow just heard of it and all hell broke loose for Ray and his wife because of him and his ilk. Without ANY complaints of any kind, this fine piece of bureaucratic crap took it upon himself to make Ray's personal Hobby Railroad "come up to code", whatever the hell that means. The lane county Land Use people said he had violated zoning for his property and hadn't bought permits. Now they have the State Land Use people saying that his hobby railroad is too big for a hobby and he must file for amusement ride variances and permits. We're talking several hundred thousand dollars here and all for a hobby railroad the Robinson's have never charged for, is never open to the public and is by invitation only to family and friends to ride for free.

Now, I really do understand how this kind of nonsensical red-tape crap gets started. Mr. White shirt is applying what he learned in "Government Jobs" class about using all the rules evenly, with no exceptions for any one individual. One size fits all and all that crap. Well guess what folks, that only works in school books on how to run a country like everyone are robots. In the real world all people are different with different needs, desires and levels of intelligence and most honest, creative higher government workers knows that and works with each case individually for the general good of all.

So here comes my sales pitch to everyone reading this tirade. Ray needs all of us to write a note or e-mail to everyone on the list below proclaiming your belief in personal property rights and the need to sometimes make exceptions to the rules for people like Ray and his Wife who are only trying to make a very cool dream come true for Railroad buffs throughout the world.
So please, take the time to make this happen and also cc the note to Ray and Katheen, so they can get an idea of who is helping them make some positive changes in our esteemed local government bureaucracies. Changes that just might show all the white shirts who is actually paying their salaries and who are after all the bosses around here.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain the details of the Robinson's endeavor. The scope of their project would be too large to put in this small piece. Luckily for all of us, they built and maintain a wonderful and very complete website chronicling it from day one through today, including a full accounting of this little white suit guy's personal problems with the project and what the County and State are asking of them.

Ray has said that without help at a much higher level than the county, he will have to remove and sell his railroad and your letters just might make the difference.


The "Meadows and Lake Kathleen Railroad" website address is:

http://members.peak.org/~kmr3/M&LKRailroad/

Go there to see pictures of the construction, history and environment and every stage of development of the Railroad. You will not believe how cool this is.

Now below are the snailmail addresses and e-mail addresses of all the folks that might be able to help put the little white suit dude in his place and preserve this grand example of one families perseverance, patience, intelligence and honer in creating a dream come true for themselves and all the Railroad lovers.

Please take the time to send as many of these people your views on private property rights and the need to sometimes make exceptions to the rules for people like Ray and his Wife who are only trying to make a very cool dream come true for Railroad buffs throughout the world.

For all of you on the list below, we are all asking your help in any way you can to do anything you are capable of doing to help Ray keep his Railroad running now and into the future. The kinds of things the "Tin man county guy" is asking for makes the whole thing impossible for Ray and His wife to do. They would have to immediately start tearing the whole thing out after so many years of blood, sweat and tears from them and the hundreds of wonderful people who volunteered their time for free to make this happen.

Won't you please help?

To all you fine folks that have taken the time to read this whole thing, I would also ask that you not only copy and paste it into an e-mail and send it on to the addresses below but also to everyone on your personal e-mail lists, so we can keep this going out into the world.


Thank you from the bottom of my heart.....
Paul Huston

Ray and Kathy Robinson's e-mail address to cc to is:
kmr3@pioneer.net


Here are all the addresses of folks who might be able to help the Robinson's with their problems.....

Gov. Kulongoski, snailmail address: 900 Court St. N.E. #254, Salem, Oregon, 97301

State Senator Jeff Kruse: snailmail address: 900 Court St., Northeast Suite S209, Salem, Oregon 97301

Sen. Jeffery A. Merkley
E-mail: senator@merkley.senate.gov

Sen. Ron Wyden
Contact info: http://wyden.senate.gov/contact

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio
Contact info: http://www.house.gov/formdefazio/contact.html

Sen. Joanne Verger
e-mail: sen.joanneverger@state.or.us

Morrisette.Sen@state.or.us

Pete.Sorenson@co.lane.or.us

matt.laird@co.lane.or.us

Marsha.MILLER@co.lane.or.us








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Come on.......DO IT!