Sorry for the length, this started out as a simple observation but like customary use; nothing is simple. One Walton beachfront owner’s perspective.
As I try to put Walton's customary use of private property in perspective for me as a beachfront owner I think about the young men and women who volunteered to go into harms way, to place their lives in jeopardy, to protect our national and local interests and to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against radical Islamic terrorism in "Afganisand", Iraq, and other failed states around the world. How their grandparents fought in Vietnam against communism and their great grandparents fought Nazism in WWII, and the millions of American Heroes that died in all the conflicts since 1776 who protected us and our values. That's my bigger picture and perspective of "things".
It makes Walton's and customary-use advocates claim of public use on private sand seem petty and insignificant in the big scheme of “things”. And I relax and recommit to protecting my property rights; not necessarily just for my exclusive right of private enjoyment, but because local Governments do NOT have the right to declare private property rights void, regardless if the majority feel property should be private or not, without due process or compensation. Especially if custom is based on local government's BCC and TDC failure to manage economic growth and then shifting the burden to private property owners to make their private property available to everyone and anyone without their consent to use their private property they pay taxes on (and I don’t want a tax reduction in exchange for my property rights). It’s not my responsibility to give up my property rights that I paid for and pay taxes on annually to the public unless I choose to. The public paid for and have the rights to more than 32,000 feet of Walton public beachfront and 5,000 acres of public recreational areas with amenities like parking and restrooms. I didn’t authorize the TDC over the past 20(?) years to spend $20,000,000 tax dollars a year to tell the public there is 26 miles of beaches when 75% of the beaches have been private property since 1824 when Walton became a county. There is no legal littoral property rights “status quo” that new rich villainous carpetbagger beachfront owners have tried to change (much of the private beachfront is owned by locals for decades) as some have claimed except the status quo of the Constitution and property deeds.
That the idea that private property, rights to ownership, and freedom from government police powers abuse and taxation was such an important value that the United States of America ratified a Constitution 242 years ago that protects private property rights as a key part of the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government can tell me HOW I can use my property but not WHO can use my property. WHO is the jurisdiction of the courts. That it will take extraordinary and exceptional proof for a court to find an exception to your and my personal private property rights. William Blackstone who in the 1700s published Blackstone's Commentary on old English common law that many American courts have relied on since stated; "So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community."
So when Walton's Tony Anderson, Cecilia Jones, Bill Chapman, Sara Comander, Cindy Meadows, Bill Imfeld, Larry Jones, Dave Rauschkolb, Jacque Markel and the majority of the public who declare customary use of private property based on emotional claims and mismanagement of tax payers money to litigate against 900 Walton property owners and not the exceptional multiple elements to prove customary use, I try to put it in perspective.
I just want Government and the public to respect the property rights I have had and have today with the title to the property I paid for, pay annual taxes on and the Sheriff to enforce all the laws. Just like you would your property. If the public respects those rights and I can enjoy my property, which is my right, I don’t mind sharing. But the public can’t respect property rights they don’t know about and that’s the responsibility of local the BCC and the TDC or Sheriff. But first the BCC has to respect those property rights and the BCC and staff don’t. Until then I’ll try to keep in prospective the big scheme of “things”, take a deep breath, and recommit to protecting my property rights from all the public misinformation, misunderstanding, or just plain abuse of power from a misguided local Government.
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Florida statute; 163.035 2. All proceedings under this paragraph shall be de novo. The court must determine whether the evidence presented demonstrates that the recreational customary use for the use or uses identified in the notice of intent have been ancient, reasonable, without interruption, and free from dispute. There is no presumption regarding the existence of a recreational customary use with respect to any parcel of property, and the governmental entity has the burden of proof to show that a recreational customary use exists. An owner of a parcel of property that is subject to the complaint has the right to intervene as a party defendant in such proceeding.
de novo: When a court hears a case de novo, it is deciding the issues without reference to any legal conclusion or assumption made by the previous court to hear the case.
Blackstone common-law custom criteria based in many hundreds of years of common law; "[c]ustomary public rights require a showing that the use of land is (1) ancient, (2) reasonable and peaceful, (3) exercised without interruption, (4) of certain boundaries, (5) obligatory or compulsory, (6) not inconsistent with other customs or law, and (7) by a multitudinous number
As I try to put Walton's customary use of private property in perspective for me as a beachfront owner I think about the young men and women who volunteered to go into harms way, to place their lives in jeopardy, to protect our national and local interests and to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against radical Islamic terrorism in "Afganisand", Iraq, and other failed states around the world. How their grandparents fought in Vietnam against communism and their great grandparents fought Nazism in WWII, and the millions of American Heroes that died in all the conflicts since 1776 who protected us and our values. That's my bigger picture and perspective of "things".
It makes Walton's and customary-use advocates claim of public use on private sand seem petty and insignificant in the big scheme of “things”. And I relax and recommit to protecting my property rights; not necessarily just for my exclusive right of private enjoyment, but because local Governments do NOT have the right to declare private property rights void, regardless if the majority feel property should be private or not, without due process or compensation. Especially if custom is based on local government's BCC and TDC failure to manage economic growth and then shifting the burden to private property owners to make their private property available to everyone and anyone without their consent to use their private property they pay taxes on (and I don’t want a tax reduction in exchange for my property rights). It’s not my responsibility to give up my property rights that I paid for and pay taxes on annually to the public unless I choose to. The public paid for and have the rights to more than 32,000 feet of Walton public beachfront and 5,000 acres of public recreational areas with amenities like parking and restrooms. I didn’t authorize the TDC over the past 20(?) years to spend $20,000,000 tax dollars a year to tell the public there is 26 miles of beaches when 75% of the beaches have been private property since 1824 when Walton became a county. There is no legal littoral property rights “status quo” that new rich villainous carpetbagger beachfront owners have tried to change (much of the private beachfront is owned by locals for decades) as some have claimed except the status quo of the Constitution and property deeds.
That the idea that private property, rights to ownership, and freedom from government police powers abuse and taxation was such an important value that the United States of America ratified a Constitution 242 years ago that protects private property rights as a key part of the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government can tell me HOW I can use my property but not WHO can use my property. WHO is the jurisdiction of the courts. That it will take extraordinary and exceptional proof for a court to find an exception to your and my personal private property rights. William Blackstone who in the 1700s published Blackstone's Commentary on old English common law that many American courts have relied on since stated; "So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community."
So when Walton's Tony Anderson, Cecilia Jones, Bill Chapman, Sara Comander, Cindy Meadows, Bill Imfeld, Larry Jones, Dave Rauschkolb, Jacque Markel and the majority of the public who declare customary use of private property based on emotional claims and mismanagement of tax payers money to litigate against 900 Walton property owners and not the exceptional multiple elements to prove customary use, I try to put it in perspective.
I just want Government and the public to respect the property rights I have had and have today with the title to the property I paid for, pay annual taxes on and the Sheriff to enforce all the laws. Just like you would your property. If the public respects those rights and I can enjoy my property, which is my right, I don’t mind sharing. But the public can’t respect property rights they don’t know about and that’s the responsibility of local the BCC and the TDC or Sheriff. But first the BCC has to respect those property rights and the BCC and staff don’t. Until then I’ll try to keep in prospective the big scheme of “things”, take a deep breath, and recommit to protecting my property rights from all the public misinformation, misunderstanding, or just plain abuse of power from a misguided local Government.
--------------------------------------
Florida statute; 163.035 2. All proceedings under this paragraph shall be de novo. The court must determine whether the evidence presented demonstrates that the recreational customary use for the use or uses identified in the notice of intent have been ancient, reasonable, without interruption, and free from dispute. There is no presumption regarding the existence of a recreational customary use with respect to any parcel of property, and the governmental entity has the burden of proof to show that a recreational customary use exists. An owner of a parcel of property that is subject to the complaint has the right to intervene as a party defendant in such proceeding.
de novo: When a court hears a case de novo, it is deciding the issues without reference to any legal conclusion or assumption made by the previous court to hear the case.
Blackstone common-law custom criteria based in many hundreds of years of common law; "[c]ustomary public rights require a showing that the use of land is (1) ancient, (2) reasonable and peaceful, (3) exercised without interruption, (4) of certain boundaries, (5) obligatory or compulsory, (6) not inconsistent with other customs or law, and (7) by a multitudinous number
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