PORT ANGELES – Joshua Alpert wants to wish “sweet dreams” to some very strange bedfellows – Friends of the Fields and the Sequim and Port Angeles associations of Realtors.
Alpert, an official of the nationwide Trust for Public Land, hopes to help the farmland preservation group and the real estate agents co-sponsor a program to protect agricultural resources in Clallam County.
In 2005, the Realtors associations fought Friends of the Fields over Proposition 1 on the November ballot.
The measure would have added a half-percent excise tax to real estate sales. The money would have paid farmers not to sell their land to developers.
The proposition lost by a 58-42 percent margin.
During the sometimes-bitter campaign, the Realtors promised to support a farm-preservation program, provided it wasn’t based on real estate taxes.
While they haven’t revealed their strategy yet, they joined their former foes Monday for a presentation to Clallam County commissioners.
Realtors and farmers said they’d ask the Trust for Public Land to run a levy or bond campaign, as it has for hundreds of communities across the country.
