BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse

Subject: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 12:07 PM

Here is an issue than can affect you all, no matter your politics.
On 60 Minutes last Sunday, the last segment dealt with a man and his wife in a small city in Ohio. They live in their "dream" house, an ordinary pleasant house that overlooks a beautiful park. They've lived there for 38 years, and the mortgage is paid off.

City council is expropriating their house, and those of their neighbours. For what? A highway? An airport? Another public facility?

No. For the "public good," the city is expropriating this and adjacent houses to sell the land to a private developer, who will build condos, thus increasing the tax base. The expanded tax base evidently represents "public good." The condo developer wants the park view.

If your home isn't yours, doesn't that counter one of the basic freedoms of the American Constitution? (I'm on shaky ground, there.)

Because I didn't see the 60 Minutes segment, and only heard about it, I did a google, and came up with the following information. The information is absolutely astounding. Websites are listed below.

"Most people would be shocked to discover that governments across the nation are taking individual's homes, only to transfer that property to a favored business or neighbor. Or that businesses are often being condemned, just so that another business can take the property and make a larger profit. Yet in the last few years, that's exactly what's been going on. Local governments in particular have taken private homes and businesses to replace them with other privately owned businesses, malls, industrial developments, and upscale housing."

That quote taken from

http://www.heartland.org/article.cfm?artId=9348


Also see:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32172


and

http://www.castlecoalition.org

I think input on this outrage would be interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: GUEST,Mickey191
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 02:50 PM

I saw part of the show and was appalled. My heart goes out to these people. In a nearby city, a huge Shopping Center was proposed. There was to be a "safety margin" surrounding the mall. There was to be no infringement on private homes. Public referendum passed the plan. Suddenly the margin disappeared because a few more stores signed on. Think it was 23 homes that were plowed under to make the "Safety margin." A disgrace!

Eminent Domain clearly means nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 03:00 PM

This is criminal failure on the part of local governments to tend to their first order of business. Focking MBAs think their business is business instead of government and couldn't tell you the difference if you threatened them.


A

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: AliUK
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 03:18 PM

Damn..!you yanks should get together and revolt. Maybe chuck a few of them city hall buggers into Boston Harbour. Seems that the Imperialist spirit is still alive and well and living in Ohio.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 03:20 PM

Is there such a thing as a very large class action suit on the Federal level? This is Big Brother gone amok.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 03:39 PM

One problem with the lawsuit is that generally in these cases, the government or developer pays the market value of the property to the owner before taking it over, or else re-sites the business. There is still emotional distress when people don't want to move, but it's generally not a case of a person's life-savings in home equity being taken away.

I don't know about the 60 minutes cases, though.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 04:16 PM

And what happens to people who aren't owners? People who've been tenants for decades, for example?

I hope and think they'd have a lot more trouble getting that kind of thing pushed through over here - especially where it's for commercial private development, not even for a public service.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 04:44 PM

Tenants' rights is a whole separate issue from property rights. If the owner of your property decides to sell it for whatever reason, you might be out of luck depending on many factors, or you might be able to fight it. I do believe it would be harder to fight eminent domain abuse from a position as tenant, but I don't really know.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 06:55 PM

A number of years ago a friend of mine was informed by the county/state where he lived that they needed a wedge of his ground next to the highway for developing a safer turn out lane. When he demurred, they told him that if he didn't sell it to them they would coopt it without payment. He sold.

If you are told that your property will be taken willy nilly, it is still coercion. When it is for perceived safety's sake, it may be permissible. When you are forced to sell on the basis of planned alternate development it is unconscionable.

Remember the old stories of a small house tucked away in the shadows of surrounding skyscrapers? What happened to the concept of refusal to go along?

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 10:34 PM

Good responses -- but do bear in mind that the city council(s) is/are expropriating privately-owned houses for other private owners. There is no objection to expropriation for a highway, etc. -- that's legal. But if my city tries to force me to sell my house so a condo can be put up on the lot, that's illegal, IMO. The cities are rationalizing disgusting behaviour.

Someone asked about group lawsuit -- I think that is one way to go, and see my third link in the maiden post, castlecoalition. The other way that some neighbourhoods are handling it is by getting up petitions to force a referendum.

But these ordinary people shouldn't have to take these actions. Many of them are retired, and just want what they've earned.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 06:18 PM

It seems reasonable to assume that councillors and/or officials involved in this kind of thing are getting some kind of kick-back.

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: Art Thieme
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 11:08 AM

And one fine day the papers will be full of a massacre of dozens of people by a home owner there who had all he could take and went on a rampage---all alone --- with his automatic rifle. The person would be right and wrong at the same time. One more sad paradox for our times...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: mooman
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 11:50 AM

Totally appalling.

The

Subject: RE: BS: NonPartisan Issue: Eminent Domain Abuse
From: mooman
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 11:53 AM

Whoops!
_________________

Totally appalling.

The

Motorway Song

by Leon Rosselson seems appropriate in this instance.

Peace,

moo