People should have the right to access and travel on public waterways -- this seems clear enough. But what if that waterway -- a river, for instance -- runs through private property: does it become a case of trespass if the boater comes ashore? Does one "right" trump the other?

It's not an easy question to resolve, since both rights -- the rivers user's and the property owner's -- seem legitimate. But river rafters apparently have better lobbying skills than riverside property owners do, since legislators have settled the dispute in favor of the former, over the latter.

Reports the Pueblo Chieftain:

"A bill that allows rafters to go aground on private property passed the House on Tuesday and awaits the governor's signature to become law.

Sponsored by state Rep. Kathleen Curry, unaffiliated-Gunnison, HB1188 sparked debate over commercial rafters' rights to travel public waterways and the rights of property owners.

In the end, rafters won out, as the bill passed 40-25.

The bill, if approved by Gov. Bill Ritter, would allow rafters on commercial trips to touch the banks and the riverbed as they pass through private property. Until now, rafters had been allowed to pass through private property as long as both of those steps were avoided.

Opponents of the bill said it strips property owners to their right of exclusion. State Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, said allowing rafters portage is akin to setting aside circumstances that allow trespassing through one's house, yard or car.

"Once you allow government to start saying who can and cannot come on your property, that's a very dangerous door," Sonnenberg said."

On this question, I tend to come down on the side of the property owner over the river rafter -- on the side of the individual rather than the collective. That's because we're witnessing a steady erosion of the well-defined rights of individual property owners in the United States, in favor of the much more nebulous "rights" claimed by the state and the collective. Once property rights become subject to majority rule, or the discretion of the state, they lose their former meaning. The floodgates are open to a gradual washing-away of this bedrock American value.

River rafters who were once prohibited from coming ashore on private property, without the owner's permission, will now be permitted to do so, with the permission of the state legislature. Score one more for the collective, at the expense of the individual. It may not seen like a big deal -- unless you put yourself in the property owner's place. The camel's nose is under the tent. Whether he forces his way further inside, only time will tell. But what's to stop him from doing so, if such conflicts are settled by majority rule? The collective will always be able to out-vote the individual.

Let's explore this dynamic a little closer to home -- on the city's historic north end. Sally and Holger Christiansen take great pride in their historic home on Cascade Avenue. They've spent a small fortune on loving restorations -- on making theirs a better neighborhood than it was when they arrived. It's the sort of gentrification work that ought to be cheered by city officials and the Historic Preservation Board.

But the Christiansen's ran afoul of the aesthetic enforcers on the un-elected preservation board (acting in the name of the collective) when they built a beautiful (and historically-correct) brick wall -- a piece of art, really -- that was a few inches higher than the rules allowed. They initially received a waiver for the wall from city planning, but were rejected by the historic board, in a process the Christiansen's felt was stacked against them. Before they could take their case to City Council, they were sued by the city. A judge has ruled for the city, giving the couple 90 days to chop off the top of their $150,000 wall.

The judge didn't rule on whether wall height restrictions were capriciously enforced (which evidence presented in court strongly suggests). He ducked the central issue. The Christiansen's lost because they didn't exhaust every administrative remedy before going to court. But the city sued the couple, as I understand it, not the other way around. They never made a final appeal to City Council.

No one is completely blameless in the conflict that arose -- the couple probably should have worked the process through, even though, from their point of view, it gave too much authority to a historic board that just wanted to say "no" to something. But one might ask why building a wall on one's own property requires anyone's approval -- and whether it should be contingent on the approval of an unelected board, which rules over the overlay district like a shadow government, even though there are those in the zone who opposed its creation? The injustice of the situation, as they perceived it, made the Christiansens combative, understandably. It would make me combative too.

Historic preservation efforts should be strictly voluntary, in my view, not coercive. This tips the balance of power too far in the direction of the collective, at the expense of the individual. This case illustrates the dangers of coercive preservation in the historic north end. It's why I believe individuals who found themselves in the district, sometimes against their choosing, should be given the opportunity to op-out.

Wall height rules are subjective in nature and arbitrarily enforced, in my opinion. There are walls within walking distance of the Christiansen's home, and all across the city, including in the historic overlay zone, that violate the same limits. But now the city and the historic board -- in order to make an example of the Christiansens and "win" a test of wills -- may force the couple to decapitate the wall. Score one more for the collective, over the individual.

This is the sort of thing that routinely happens in collectivist Boulder, where property rights are always subject to the whims of city officials and activist busybodies. But it would seem unthinkable in Colorado Springs, where the rights of individual property owners are still supposed to count for something, against the claims of the collectivists.