Arkley's Buying Binge

More on Rob Arkley in this week's North Coast Journal. How much of Humboldt County will he own twenty years from now?

I agree with him that the government owns too much land already. One has to wonder, though, about his purchasing of the Dog Ranch, just across the Samoa Bridge on the peninsula. He says it's going to be "fenced off and not open to the public...". C'mon now, Rob! I believe it's actually private property now and isn't really open to the public in the conventional sense, but people can still wander around in there. At least I did some years ago and nobody got on my case. Is he really going to try and close it off to the public at large?

One of those strange conflicts with this Libertarian: I said many years ago how nice it was, when I was in the National Guard at annual training at Camp Roberts (CA), that the base was open to the public for some purposes, like hunting and fishing. If it was private ranch land, only a priveleged few would likely have access to it. So, in that case, government land benefits a potentially larger group of people than private land.

That said, we've seen more and more restrictions put on use of government land in the county, state and country and, if many on the Left had their way, restrictions would likely get much worse. More and more land will only be accessible to the young and healthy with backpacks. Of course, the Left will also try to further restrict access and use of privately owned land as well so I suppose it's best to opt for private control of as much land as possible since private control will likely be restricted less over time than government land.

Still leaves the question of access, though. If Arkley owned all the lands we currently designate as parks and the like, would he allow hiking, riding and fishing? I would think he might since he's sunk a lot of money into public facilities like the Eureka zoo and boardwalk. Only time will tell.