The next issue to turn the Right against Bush; Eminent Domain

Soon the US Supreme Court will be ruling on the right of local communities to condemn private property, not for highways or parks, but to turn it over to developers for profit.

The libertarian Right is against this (I happen to agree with them. Taking private property through eminent domain to enrich property developers is wrong. It should only be used in cases where the property is in derelict condition or abandoned.)

Now our boy George has some experience in this area;

http://austin.about.com/cs/bushbiographies/a/bush_background_5.htm

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More hypocrisy to expose.

definition of "best use". He told me that 'best use' of a property is defined SOLELY by $$$$ - long term 'value'(that can't be touched or counted) to the community doesn't factor into the definition (according to him).

And we 'wonder' why (some of) our communities are going to *hell*......

It is called The Condemned.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/01/01_407.html

SNIP.."In Ohio, and across the country, homeowners are battling cities and developers conspiring to seize their property.

"But Anderson has an ace up his sleeve. At his behest, and using his money, the city of Norwood has invoked its powers of eminent domain -- the right, granted by the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, of a government to seize private property and turn it to public use -- to condemn a neighborhood and order residents out of their homes. Norwood is not the first city to act as a real estate broker whose offer can’t be refused, nor is Anderson the first businessman to benefit from this kind of largesse. A 1954 Supreme Court decision stating that the economic benefits of private development are a legitimate "public use" has forged an unholy alliance between cities strapped for cash and entrepreneurs promising economic bounty. (Anderson, for example, forecasts that Rookwood Exchange will net Norwood, a city with an annual budget of $18 million, between $1.5 and $3 million in annual taxes.) Struggling cities have placed their urban renewal hopes in the hands of developers like Anderson, who in turn rely on governments to assemble the parcels for their projects.

According to the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public-interest law firm, this is a growing trend. The institute analyzed eminent domain cases between 1998 and 2002 and found more than 10,000 instances where local governments had attempted to use a power once reserved for indisputably public projects like highways and railroads to obtain properties for private development projects such as box stores and golf courses.

No properties are off-limits -- working-class communities, ski chalets, and one-tenth of San Jose, California, have all been targets of condemnation proceedings on behalf of enterprises as varied as casinos, Costco, and the New York Times -- and no one has yet been able to thwart this newly privatized version of eminent domain. But by litigating against what it calls "eminent domain abuse," the IJ has succeeded in creating enough disarray in state courts to achieve its ultimate goal: convincing the Supreme Court to revisit the issue. This spring, for the first time in 50 years, the court will address the parameters of eminent domain, and the institute hopes the justices will rein in the private use of what the court itself once called government’s "despotic power."

"It was the day before Mother’s Day in 2002," Joy Gamble says. "They said they were going to build this fabulous project, and we were going to be gone. The roof fell in." The Gambles, who have lived in Norwood their entire lives, made an immediate decision. They weren’t selling, no matter what price Anderson was paying. "And start life all over again?" Carl adds. "We started here, we raised two kids here, we finish up here."

Long article, depressing, but we need to know.

This is a classic issue of little guy vs big business and the corrupt politicians that do their bidding.

Who knows, maybe it will even open their eyes to the Halliburton/Cheney/war connection and DeLay's corruption.

Reform should be the order of the day. This should be our issue.

Is it irony or poetic justice that our bi-coastal nation was forged by rugged individualists with a greed for land occupied by previous owners -- and now we're subservient to our "freedom loving" government's whims?

For the first time in modern history -- a number of US citizens are in envy of Native Americans. They've been publicly exterminated & jerked around for so long that it's no longer politically possible to steal the remaining scraps of land that fell through the cracks of the government intent to violate every treaty.

is a good idea gone bad. It's addictive. The problem is that the definition of a "blighted area" is not restrictive enough. I liked the idea until I worked closely with it and saw the corruption.