Crop duster controversy in Colorado

I saw one of the local geniuses interviewed the other night ... to paraphrase "This is just as dangerous as someone walking down the street shooting an AK-47 ..."

Where's the clorox? The gene pool needs a serious flush.
 
weilke said:
Zoning and land use are hardly the 'free market' but rather a very political environment.
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It must be politically advantageous to go from ag to residential then, because that's what's happening.
 
Everskyward said:
It must be politically advantageous to go from ag to residential then, because that's what's happening.
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At times, it is financially advantageous for the zoning board members for a property to turn residential from ag.
 
weilke said:
At times, it is financially advantageous for the zoning board members for a property to turn residential from ag.
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As long as the demand is there it's probably financially advantageous for everyone.
 
Here's an Google Earth shot of the field. This area has also complained about the MD80 flights to/from KFNL, just a couple miles south. A Baron did crash on a neighborhood street 2 miles north in 2004.

Sugar beet field. Without tariffs and subsidies they might grow something edible.:rolleyes2:

Lots of dusting north of Denver with all the truck crops, sugar beets, and corn.
 

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More kids, more voters. ;)

We give every parent in the country a write-off for each ankle-biter off their Federal taxes way down at the AGI line, just so they can spend that money on their child's education, and never have to complain about not being able to afford the schooling of their choice, right? ;)

(In reality, the more money parents have, the higher the price of education. Only the ratio of income to return on education investment adjusted for inflation really matters.)

As a relatively rare non-parent with no plans to be one, the irony of the Dependent write-off and parents hollering that schools are bad, is pretty easy to spot in my house. :D

Seriously though, and more on-topic for this thread, Urbanization is the driving force behind most politics these days, way down deep. Mixed with never-ending population increases, it leads to stuff like this. That neighborhood wasn't there when I was a kid. When your neighbors are over the horizon, life is less regulated but you have to do more for yourself. Specialization drives Urbanization.

No politician is ever going to take a population-control stance in my lifetime and survive it politically.
 
gkainz said:
I saw one of the local geniuses interviewed the other night ... to paraphrase "This is just as dangerous as someone walking down the street shooting an AK-47 ..."

Where's the clorox? The gene pool needs a serious flush.
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Shnikys!

Do I want a plane that close to my roof? No
Would I complain? Maybe
But an AK-47? WTF mate?!:dunno:
 
ejensen said:
Here's an Google Earth shot of the field. This area has also complained about the MD80 flights to/from KFNL, just a couple miles south. A Baron did crash on a neighborhood street 2 miles north in 2004.

Sugar beet field. Without tariffs and subsidies they might grow something edible.:rolleyes2:

Lots of dusting north of Denver with all the truck crops, sugar beets, and corn.
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Why do they have to turn over the houses? Couldn't the runs be made north-south?
 
More turns going N/S. More turns = less efficient.
 
roncachamp said:
But no turns over houses, which seems to be the issue.
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They could probably fly some sort of Spirograph pattern too. The real issue here is idiots moving into the country and complaining.
 
EdFred said:
They could probably fly some sort of Spirograph pattern too. The real issue here is idiots moving into the country and complaining.
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Yep, neighborhood reps attend all our airport meetings. We have voluntary noise abatement. Requested to overfly that reservoir on takeoff from 33 when eastbound.
 
Send the F-16's up from Buckley to do a few low passes. That should fix their little red wagons. :D
 
Turning over the houses is not an issue, these people would complain anyway. "but we wanted to live across from a Norman Rockwell farm not a real one." So they will have beat the local farmers into the stone age. Whatever. When they lived in the city they made the delivery trucks go down someone poorer's road.
 
Being upset about cropdusters is not just confined to transplanted city folk. I'm sure if some airplane started doing that over a cluster of houses in some rural hamlet people would complain too.

Some people start shooting.

According to the arrest warrant complaint filed by Texas Ranger Corey Lain with Justice of the Peace Stan Mahler, Riley is accused of attempting to murder two crop duster pilots in 2007 and 2008.

Riley allegedly fired 23 bullets from a semi-automatic rifle at a pilot and crop duster that flew over Riley’s land in 2007 and struck another crop duster with bullets in early 2008 that might have caused a crash.

Riley was arrested Aug. 31 on a Palo Pinto County warrant for theft of exotic livestock, over $1,500, less than $20,000, a state jail felony after his alleged accomplice informed Palo Pinto County Game Warden Clifton Swofford of the location of the livestock heads.

Riley owns the Flying Lead Ranch, a game ranch, in Olney, where sportsmen can reportedly shoot white-tail deer, sika deer, hogs, pheasants, quail, ducks, sandhill cranes, turkey and pigeons.

Game Warden Brent Isom of Young County reportedly recovered video evidence during the search of Riley’s ranch that shows footage of a plane and several shots fired as the plane comes near the camera.

According to the affidavit, the man who provided information to authorities leading to the original search of the property told Lain he filmed the incident in July 2007 as Riley shot at the plane with the .22-caliber semi-automatic rifle.

The man also reportedly told Lain he heard Riley state many times he was going to shoot the planes out of the sky because they disturbed the pheasants Riley was raising in cages.

The complaint states Riley admitted to Lain on Sept. 2 he threatened to the owner of the crop dusting company on numerous occasions that he was going to shoot the crop duster planes down if they continued to fly over his house.
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http://mineralwellsindex.com/x1858744738/Man-allegedly-shot-at-planes/print
 
Yeah, the difference is the city folk stand around, get sprayed instead of taking cover, and complain loudly like babies.

The country folks went inside, grabbed the gun, and did something about their "problem".

:rofl: :nono:
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah, the difference is the city folk stand around, get sprayed instead of taking cover, and complain loudly like babies.

The country folks went inside, grabbed the gun, and did something about their "problem".

:rofl: :nono:
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I though it was amusing that he didn't want his pheasants in cages disturbed...
 
Richard said:
Nyet. The assessed value can drop too. Sure, there is usually a lag following the drop in market but the savvy homeowner can minimize that by visiting the county assessor's office pronto.
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But "strangely", when the assessed values go down in an area the tax rates go up correspondingly so the actual tax is relatively unchanged.
 
roncachamp said:
Do you believe that would be efficient?



No, the real issue is flying towards and making turns over the houses.
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Nope, but they *could* fly it that way.

If the houses weren't there it wouldn't be an issue.
 
gismo said:
But "strangely", when the assessed values go down in an area the tax rates go up correspondingly so the actual tax is relatively unchanged.
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Yes, if properties are re-assessed and the value decreases like in today's environment, the local governments raise the "milage" to compensate for the loss of revenue. Fair? NO. They never have to tighten their belts like we do
 
Dan Thomas said:
Where I come from a guy bought some rural land, built a nice house and moved in. Across the road was a log-house building operation, one of those that builds the house, then marks the logs for reassembly, takes it apart, and ships it. The operation had been there for years. This homeowner disliked the sound of chainsaws all day and had the courts shut it down.

Dan
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How though? Seriously...how can that be allowed to happen?
 
tdager said:
How though? Seriously...how can that be allowed to happen?
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My guess is it ended up in zoning court where the judge ruled that land was not properly zoned for the business (ie: residential land and not industrial). The guy just managed to have himself a "home occupation" until the neighbor complained.
The "fix" would be for the town to rezone THAT property but then, spot zoning would be an issue. That and getting it passed.
 
The couple of times I've been out to Anaheim and seen first hand the urban sprawl take over the orange fields, I have to say, it's never a good thing to mix urbanites and farmers so close together. They are not meant for each other.
And the farms were there first! Do something to protect them or we'll lose them all and end up buying MORE from offshore.
 
"The farmer and the rancher can be friends..." La la la.

Working on getting me in a Rogers and Hammerstein mood. ;)
 
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