Flight 93 panel member resigns over eminent domain

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

SOMERSET, Pa. -- A Flight 93 Federal Advisory Commission member has resigned because of the government's plan to take seven property owners' land for the memorial.

Somerset County Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes says she doesn't support using eminent domain to get the land.

The National Park Service says it must acquire the land so the memorial can be built by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

The park service says it's been unsuccessful in negotiations, but property owners maintain negotiations haven't happened. Under eminent domain, the value will be decided in court.

The park service established the commission to make a recommendation for the planning, design, construction and management of the memorial.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09132/969574-455.stm

Make a smaller memorial.

Fucking eminent domain crap anyway.

after all, freedom isn't free.

They want to make a memorial so are trying to take people's land, whether they want to sell or not, and pay whatever they think is fair.

The terrorists have won again

Their properties would have been worth more two years or even one year ago.

I understand what you mean but the owners never receive fair market value for their property. It's just that fair market value in this depressed market is a lot less.

I've had personal experience with this. And even though I got a settlement that was enough to enable me to retire a couple years early, I still got screwed. And I would have got screwed a lot worse if I hadn't forced them to take me to court and have alternate valuations considered. What I was offered was a friggin insult.

Using eminent domain to acquire property for schools, roadways, utilities etc. is OK.

Using it for ANY other purpose is wrong.

Google "Kelo v. New London" if you really want to get pissed off about this topic. Hint: It was the "liberal" wing of the court that decided this.

will they go to court? i hope they fight it because this is baloney!

It no longer matters what the government wants to do with your property.

Give it to Wal Mart to build another crappy store? Thats OK.

Take your small business to put in a touristy mall? No prob.

Used to be a government taking had to be for a public purpose. Now according to the overrated justice Souter and some of his buds, creating minimum wage retail jobs is deemed to be a public purpose.

I hope they fight it too but I'm afraid they are fucked.

not if same sex marriage will lead to people wanting to marry animals. the government can just come in and take your property and you can't do anything about it. you bought it... you took care of it.... you pay taxes.... and you have no rights against the government... they can offer you crap and if you don't take it,you just lose it. it's bullshit!! it's very sad. but look over there.... a blonde model posed for some nekkid pictures!! oh and look over there..... there's a blonde girl missing!

If I remember corectly, not only Souters but Stevens had also signed off on that!

Ever since "Bush v Gore", I've held Stevens in the highest regard! ("Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.")

pnorman

And the court's "liberal" and "moderate" justices all signed off on it.

The baddies all opposed it.

It did not help my opinion of the various justices.

After all, terrorism is the greatest threat this nation has ever faced, etc. etc. blah blah blah.

:sarcasm:

This is disgusting.

Edited to add smiley.

http://www.examiner.com/x-6670-Atlanta-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m5d11-Flight-93-memorial--at-what-price

That's insane.

mikey_the_rat

It's way excessive. Especially, if, as the families say, there haven't been any negotiations.

Do they hate America?

:sarcasm:

that figure alone should raise red flags...

mikey_the_rat

you gotta get your official Let's Roll® gear.

Now, that would be ultra-cool!


(Do I really have to add the sarcasm thingie?)

the size is not unreasonable.

The loved ones, many of whom participate in maintaining the current make-shift memorial consider the actual crash site a cemetary because they were unable to retrieve and remove all of the remains. The make-shift memorial itself is on a hill overlooking the crash site. Between the two, they intend make it a reflective area that will allow more public access without offending the family members whose loved ones remains are scattered and intermingled with the surrounding land.

I do think they should negotiate with the landowners and pay a fair price - and it sounds like that hasn't happened from the landowner's perspective - but this is not just a memorial, it is a gravesite in which the remains cannot be isolated to a small plots. The largest piece of debris (from the plane) was one of the engines - the rest of the plane was generally in pieces most of which were quite small - 2-5" in size; people fared less well. Significant remains were spread over an area the size of a football field - with some human remains being located and identified miles from the site.

the parcel around the crash, with the most concentrated remains, intact as "sacred ground."

Currently, only members of the family are allowed close to it.

Flight 93 landed in the middle of Somerset County Strip mines, no homes are being taken, only land, and land that is almost worthless given that it was stripped.

From the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat:
http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/local_story_132235448.html

Somerset Daily American on this resignation:
http://www.dailyamerican.com/articles/2009/05/13/news/local/news816.txt

National Park Service on the Flight 93 memorial:
http://www.nps.gov/flni

I suspect the problem for the National Park Service is that the surface owners of the land probably do NOT own the mineral rights, and the Park Service wants BOTH. Furthermore they appear to be long term leases of the land, both mineral and real, and the park Service wants to end those also.

Earlier articles on this item:
http://www.dancewithshadows.com/aviation/land-deal-signed-to-build-memorial-for-victims-of-united-airlines-flight-93-in-the-911-attack-in-pasadena/

I'm still not convinced that Rummy's slip of the tongue wasn't true - I think it's highly likely that the plane was shot down.

If so, it will mar the memorial.

.
.
.

keep any evidence under federal control

wouldn't want a wee piece of a US missile showing up in a farmer's field

All the incidents of 911 are suspicious

The planes making it to the towers,

the towers perfect straight down demolition

The hole in the pentagon, lack of airplane debris around the pentagon

the disappearance of flight 93

All these mysteries remind me of the assassination of JFK

Too many questions

not enuf answers

:freak:

Will we ever know?

as for the pentagon- i personally know someone who witnessed the plane striking the pentagon.
the only 'mysteries' are how the tin-foil hatters are able to put (somewhat)coherent sentences together.

It's May, and Truthers are emerging from the sun-warmed ground like cicadas.

lol

So, where's the change we've been suckered to believe in?

I'll vote for you on this idea.

because of what I thought we had and we have lost.

I try not to make negative posts but the 9-11 myth is BS.

We will be healthy and on a life affirming and upward curve when the denial stops and the rot is removed. Pragamatically the answer is a re-distribution of power and material wealth and humankind being in a committed marriage to the Earth and our own genus and species.

a positive ideal anyway :hi:

WTC property from Silverstein. Ok let's give him $24.00. LOL!

Where is that plane anyway? :shrug:

:eyes:

http://media.graytvinc.com/images/crash+site+flight+93.jpg
:silly:

lie. Especially about a thing like 9/11! And even if they did, SURELY the corporate owned media would expose them!!

:eyes:

Why can't people understand that these airline passengers gave the ultimate sacrifice in order to promote communism? The people now demand that these greedy land owners give up their land so we can make people we live in a free country where freedom isn't free?

haven't they taken enough around the world for the 3000 who died - how many more times that have died - this is far enough

to steal our land...and WE have NO say about it...I wonder how the people who died on that plane would feel to know something like this was being done in their name????Perhaps the relatives of those people should get involved??....This will become, the most hated memorial in this country....wonderful legacy...no??...wb

eminent domain for something where the social and community good vastly outweighs the dislocation of a very small number of people i can understand, provided that they're ACTUALLY fairly compensated (which means MORE than market price, after all market price is for VOLUNTARY participants). early use such as clearing a path for train tracks may have made sense.

but where is the compelling social and community need for taking THAT PARTICULAR LAND? surely there's a smaller or slightly different location that would work just as well, where there are people willing to move voluntarily. is the holocaust museum pointless because it's not in auschwitz?

forcing people out of their homes for this is ridiculous.

Still, I'm sure that people will be happy to accept their
new 9/11 theme park with propaganda sign-boards to support
the same old lies ... anything to avoid having to face the
truth and disrupt their little fantasy world of peace, justice
and truth for all ...

:banghead:

does this mean we can declare eminent domain and take the Pentagon for a Memorial? That could work on a whole lot of levels!

like Cuba. Let freedom ring.

This is a stupid as those parks that put up flags for every day the hostages were in captivity. Remember the hostages? There were 52 of them held for 444 days. Who the fuck cares?

And who the fuck cares about Shanksville? In twenty years are families going to drive an hour off the PA Turnpike to go see a visitor center in an old strip mine? "Kids, let's just drive on to Breezewood and rent a motel with a pool."

yes, those people should be honored, no doubt about it

but it should be done in a manner consistent with ordinary people who respect others

is kind of irrelevant, huh? . . . we STILL don't know what happened to Flight 93, but it's a pretty sure bet that it didn't make that hole . . . there would have been parts -- BIG parts (tires, landing gear, engines, etc.) -- everywhere, but according to witnesses, there was nothing resembling an aircraft found in or near the "crash site" . . . although things like plane engines WERE found in a lake several miles away . . . things that make you go "hmmmm" . . .

Take this crap to the dungeon.

http://www.debunk911myths.org/topics/United_Airlines_Flight_93_-_debris

The National Park Service says it must acquire the land so the memorial can be built by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.


WIll the Earth cease to spin on its axis?

MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST

What's with this MUST shit?

I don't think 2200+ acres is big enough.

done in my town. One statue for all Civil War vets, one for all World War I vets, one for all firefighters, etc. They were in our public parks, maybe one or two to a park.

I can remember looking up at them at maybe age 7, reading the plaques solemnly and finding them very moving each time they came into my range of vision. No tour buses, no concessions, etc. It worked.

c'mon kiddies, load up your gear, we're spending our week vacation solemnly remembering the people who mysteriously disappeared during the biggest cover-up in history. I've got us all booked at the Motel 6, with continental breakfast, gift shop, pool, and in-room coffee maker. AND we get a bus tour of the strip mined land that was seized by the government to remind us of our precious freedoms!