www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/981262/posts?page=1,50
As you know, Ive been talking about a situation in Alabaster, Alabama where the city council of this community of 24,000 is trying to seize the property of about ten homeowners so that a shopping center featuring a Wal-Mart can be built there. The politicians say that it is perfectly OK to condemn and seize this property for a privately owned shopping center because, after all, the shopping center will generate more tax money than these private homes do. We are seeing the evolution of a new standard for government seizure of private property. If some politician decides that your property would generate more tax revenue for government if it was owned by someone else, the politician can seize that property from you and turn it over to the government-preferred owner. For our example of obscene government arrogance we turn our attention to Duncanville, Texas. Duncanville calls itself A warm community of friends, and A wonderful place to raise a family. Well, Duncanville may be a wonderful place to raise your family, just so long as some politician doesnt decide that the city could get more tax revenue if your home were to become a Costco. Deborah Hodge has been living in her Duncanville home for 13 years. The Hodge property has a four bedroom house, a bar, pasture and swimming pool. Just like the city motto says, A wonderful place to raise your family. The Costco would, after all, generate a lot more tax revenue than her little house and barn.
This is what Kent Cagle thinks about private property rights in America. Cagle told the Dallas Morning News They dont have the option to say no to us. The only thing that will be settled in court is how much we have to pay for it. What is it going to take to get Americans upset about this latest craze in local government revenue raising. You just identify the properties that could produce more taxes, seize those properties, and turn them over to developers.
Thus all the city is a stakeholder in what YOU do with YOUR property and YOU have to get OUR whoever OUR is consent. Remeber when they wanted to build a casino in atlantic city and when the little old lady refused, they just build around her. I hope this woman has all this on official record, I hope the city gets slapped with punitive damages.
Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: still lurking You consider that a good point? I dont care whether they offered her $10 million, THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO FORCE HER TO RELINQUISH HER PROPERTY TO ANOTHER CITIZEN. Eminent domain is meant to be used or has properly been used to establish roadways and public usage. To take personal property from one citizen for the enrichment of another is not only immoral, its illegal under our best traditions and most written law!
Post Reply Private Reply To 5 View Replies To: tdadams Ducanville doesnt post an email address on their web site , just phone numbers. City Manager - Kent Cagle 972-780-5017 8 posted on 09/12/2003 9:05:06 AM PDT by Flyer I left my tag line in Humblegunners truck Post Reply Private Reply To 1 View Replies To: pgyanke I believe her beef was not eminent domain.
Id be more inclined to believe the homeowner that the offer was never made. The city isnt taking those homes to build a highway or a power plant. They are using that power to force them to sell their homes to developers who will make a very large profit from this deal. Is the government going to force the developers and new owners of this mall to share part of the rents they will collect on this property? No, they just want to force out the current owners as cheaply as possible and at the end of a gun if required.
Post Reply Private Reply To 9 View Replies To: still lurking There are typically more to these stories than what is reported in a one sided comentary. A property owner can always take the municipality or State to court and make them prove the need for eminent domain. Even if the court agrees, the property owner has the right to hire their own consultant to value the property. Juries typically are sympathetic to property owners and side with them.
Post Reply Private Reply To 14 View Replies To: still lurking Im sure they wish that they hadnt been so greedy. I seriously doubt that the home owner was offered nearly twice the appraised value. On the other hand it is completely believable that the city would misrepresent their offer to the press.
If I dont want to sell to the government, that will then turn around and sell it to someone else, I shouldnt have to. Eminent Domain was originally set up for highways, right of ways, railroads, sewer systems, etc. It wasnt to be so that the government could take your property, even for a fair price, and give it, or sell it, to someone else, whether it be an individual or a company.
Post Reply Private Reply To 23 View Replies To: Jonx6 I have touched a sore spot. If she considered the offer to sell an opportunity to cash out, then she blew the negotiations, I dont consider that cause to take up arms. Regardless of the transaction, a governmental body will win if your not wise in your responses.
This stuff can be spotted in the bud before problems show up on the branch. I dont know the specific law in Alabama, but typically zoning changes are only done at the request of the property owner. I cant go request to have somebodys zoning changed without their knowledge. The city may, depending on the local laws, re-zone entire areas for more intensive use, because that rasies valuethey typically cant down-zone property in most cases. Or, in this case, the town may have very loose zoning, as it is that way in small communities.
But so some private individual can come in and make profit off your land, no way! As stupid as it sounds, if anybody is worried about their land being taken for something like this, your best defense is to document the wildlife there, have some biologists do a few surveys and write-ups about the part it plays in the local ecosystem, and get the enviros on your side. Had a friend do something like this bugged the hell out of him to do it and it worked, amazing the rights that a certain type of bird has, while we humans dont.
It wasnt to be so that the government could take your property, even for a fair price, and give it, or sell it, to someone else, whether it be an individual or a company. This is just a step or two away from getting completely out of control as if they arent alreasy. Imagine what will happen when the government decides that the apartment complexes that accept section 8 vouchers are either too few or not in nice enough neighborhoods. Whats stopping them from forcing the sale of newer apartment buidings near well priced single family homes to companies that WILL play the governments game.
Post Reply Private Reply To 26 View Replies To: pgyanke If she is serious about saving her property, get an attorney well versed in property rights. She is representing herself and is stunned that the city doesnt have her best interest at heart. I know she had right of refusal, but be smart and defend yourself.
I dont care whether they offered her $10 million, THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO FORCE HER TO RELINQUISH HER PROPERTY TO ANOTHER CITIZEN. And she is an imbicile not to take DOUBLE what her house is worth. You scream her property like this is the old West, or like that movie Far and Away. Most Americans stay in the same home for for an average of 7 years. She could have bought a similar one in a nearby area for $400k and had $300k cash left over.
City fathers raise a big bond issue to build an auto mall, a return-to-custody-facility parole violaters resort and a shopping center. Usually it takes the city 200 years to rationalize the cost of all this hoopla. But in the meantime, another group will come along and the land will be traded back and forth among the city fathers and mothers, who are in and out of office. Are Americans now to stupid to see that some persons of extremely modest means, are extremely wealthy after several terms on city council? Bond Issues, eminent domain, and development are a very large feeding trough for politicos.
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