Dick Day is a landowner in rural Yamhill County, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

He’s a native Oregonian and a registered Republican.

Dick voted for Measure 37 in 2004. In fact, he filed a Measure 37 claim to build a couple of houses, maybe for his kids or perhaps to help with retirement.

Dick says he remembers the ads that he and his wife watched when Measure 37 appeared on the ballot. It sounded to him like a reasonable compromise to address what they thought was an unfair situation. That’s the primary reason why Dick says he voted for Measure 37.

But Measure 37 has become a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he says.

Almost as soon as it passed, one of Dick’s neighbors filed for a 112-house subdivision. It shocked his small community to think that something like that could happen. Dick knows that subdivisions like this one are being proposed all over Oregon in inappropriate places.

Dick says he’s literally talked to hundreds of people about Measure 37. Everyone thought they were voting to allow rural property owners to build a couple of houses, not subdivisions.

The rural roads in Dick’s area are already overcrowded. He says Highway 240, near where he lives, wasn’t designed for the traffic it already has. Imagine the increase in traffic from more than 100 additional houses.

As a Measure 37 claimant, Dick supports Measure 49 because of the fairness it provides for small claimants like him. Measure 49 simplifies the process and provides the kind of certainty that Measure 37 doesn’t. And as a neighbor of a Measure 37 claim for a massive subdivision, Dick says he supports Measure 49 because it protects farm and forest land from over-development.

Read more Oregon stories for Measure 49.