More: La Center gets pulverized in Court.

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La Center's effort to become a wholly-owned tribal entity suffered a stunning setback today when Division II of the Court of Appeals uninanimously upheld the Growth Management Board's decisions relating to allowing the Tribes to violate to the point of shattering our Growth Management laws and regulations.

Will the people of La Center wake up before they allow their government to take them over a cliff?

(Note: LB2 is the megacasino parcel)

Excerpts: 

footnote 28
United States Department of the Interior’s December 2010 decision to approve the Cowlitz Tribe’s fee-to-trust application of approximately 152 of the 245 acres in parcel LB-2. The Department of Interior’s approval allows the tribe to establish a reservation and indicates the land is that La Center and the County three years ago accurately predicted the approval of the trust application does not change our analysis. We, and the Growth Board, must consider the evidence and circumstances of the land at the time of the County’s decision to determine whether the County complied with the GMA when making its land use decisions. Otherwise, the County might have improperly developed the land should its speculative predications have failed to come to fruition. Moreover, even though the Cowlitz Tribe’s federal trust request has now been approved, the dedesignation decision. Among other practical considerations, financing to build the infrastructure of the reservation, let alone the intended casino, is unknown. And the effects of the recent economic recession may very well bring about delay or abandonment of some or all of the tribe’s development plans, even plans that are desirable and were created with good faith intentions to complete. The possibility of building a casino and the impact on the surrounding agricultural productivity of the land was too speculative in 2007 to support the County’s decisions, and it remains speculative even under the present circumstances. And even if the sewer and projected infrastructure materializes, they might serve only the tribal trust lands. 

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Accordingly, having correctly concluded that the County committed clear error in its analysis of the Lewis County test, the Growth Board did not commit an error of law by failing to defer to the County’s dedesignation decisions for parcels LB-1, LB-2, and LE. In addition, based on its review of the totality of all the evidence before it, substantial evidence supports the Growthspecific land areas: LB-1, LB-2, LE, (La Center parcels - edit added) VA, VA-2, (Vancouver parcels - edit added) and WB (Washougal parcel - edit added). We reject the County’s argument that the Growth Board is required to review the challenged planning decisions based only on portions of the record selected by the County and is precluded from reviewing the entire record. We affirm the Growth Board’s decisions with regards to parcels LB-1, LB-2, and LE.

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Accordingly, having correctly concluded that the County committed clear error in its analysis of the Lewis County test, the Growth Board did not commit an error of law by failing to defer to the County’s dedesignation decisions for parcels LB-1, LB-2, and LE. In addition, based on its review of the totality of all the evidence before it, substantial evidence supports the Growth Board’s conclusion that parcels LB-1, LB-2, and LE meet all three prongs of the Lewis County test and are ALLTCS. We discern no error and affirm the Growth Board’s decision that the evidence does not support the County’s designation of parcels LB-1, LB-2, and LE from their ALLTCS status.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the people of La Center are getting played.

The megacasino will take up ALL of the sewage capacity for this project, leaving the people... once again... on the hook.
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