As School-Building Plan Fails, New Jersey Is Left With Slums (Eminent domain strikes again)

NY Times ^ | August 26, 2005 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

[neverdem]

NEWARK, Aug. 25 - With its gangs, police shootings and struggles to modernize, this city seems to have enough problems. Now it has one more.

Dewey Street used to be a proud middle-class neighborhood, a chamber of peace and quiet in Newark's gritty heart.

But last year when the state cleared out tracts of land to build a school, most of the families were driven away. And now that the money for the school has evaporated, more than three dozen lots sit abandoned, one after another.

James Searcy is one of the last residents here, a 74-year-old man with milky eyes and slow speech. At night, his porch light is a lonely light on a dark and empty street.

He misses his old neighbors. But worse, he fears his new ones: the prostitutes, drug dealers and hangers-out beginning to creep in.

"There's no one here but me and my wife, and most times she's gone," he said.

Across New Jersey, hundreds of people have been pushed out of their homes for school projects that, it turns out, were only dreams. They were displaced as part of a once-celebrated $8.6 billion program that, instead of creating new schools, has in several instances created new slums.

In Irvington, Gloucester City and Passaic, and in other towns to a lesser degree, school officials rushed to get residents out. Now that the schools are not coming anytime soon, no one seems to know what to do with all the vacant property.

No neighborhood slid as far and as fast as Dewey Street, a stable community of owner-occupied homes, which until...

[neverdem]

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Annie and James Searcy, among the few residents who have not left the Dewey Street neighborhood in Newark, in their backyard.

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Empty houses symbolize the new blight on Dewey Street in Newark.

The New York Times
Residents were moved out of the three-block area for a new school.

But in the late 1990's, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the state to decrease the disparity between city and suburban children by building more schools.

[neverdem]

ping

[OldFriend]

Until Sharp James is run out of Newark, preferably into a jail cell, there is no hope for Newark.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Incompetent government. One can be sure that the "funds" filled many a private account!

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Probably a ploy to clear the area, let it sit awhile, and then sell it to a developer friend for near nothing. Either the billions for school was a dream, a lie that was part of the ploy, or was stolen itself.

the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the state to decrease the disparity between city and suburban children by building more schools.

An example of liberal judicial activism, and it happens all over. The judge may tell them they have not followed a legislative enactment and tell them to do so but a judge shouldn't be telling them what and how.

[yankeedame]

One can be sure that the "funds" filled many a private account!

That's what I was wondering. What happened to all that $$$ allotted for school construction? I mean, besides "evaporated"? THAT is what this story should be about.

[neverdem]

Probably a ploy to clear the area, let it sit awhile, and then sell it to a developer friend for near nothing.

That's unlikely. Newark is as likely to be developed as Detroit or Watts in Los Angeles.

[Doogle]

Probably a ploy to clear the area, let it sit awhile,


nawww, it won't sit...the fact that this story is out NOW, is the reason it will be SOLD...just like the other FReeper said to his crony friends to build more "two storied fenced in slums", another photo opt, look what I'm doing James.
Most likely the most indicted Mayor ever. I'd bet he has had more indictments then weeks as Mayor.
Eeeyep more plastic flowers, another lets hire 60 more guards to watch over cinder blocks and copper pipes while
construction is in progress.
"Weelll Dam Sam, that'll be 60 more "contributors" to my
......to my many political campaigns"


Doogle

[Coleus]

Brief History.

Stop the Debt

Left-wing activist Rutgers Professor starts Education Law Center, Inc. and hires an ex-nun, Marilyn Morheuser, they go to court in 1981 representing poor children to force the state to give more money to the inner city school districts, Abbott v. Burke, Abbott IV decided by a Whitman-appointed NJSC and Chief Justice, Deborah Poritz, they mandate 6.2 billion be spent on the abbott districts, the RINO legislature adds another $2billion and pass illegally a bond referendum without voter approval.   RINOs lose and McGreevey takes over and forms the Schools Construction Corp.   A big bureaucracy with NO oversight, they spend billions on buying land, knocking down buildings and cleaning up toxic waste on the sites and only building a fraction of the schools planned and are now going to run out of money....What a big mess.

There was a story in the Star Ledger about a soldier coming home from Iraq only to find his home was going to be bought for fair-market value only to find out the state wasn't  going to buy it, meanwhile vagrants took over, stole his windows, etc...another big mess.

State to buy 60 homes stuck in school fiasco

Soldier's toughest fight is on the home front

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links!

[caisson71]

Here it comes. It's Bush's fault.

[T.L.Sink]

One thing isn't clear in the Times article. The recent idiotic Supreme Court decision was unconstitutional because the Fifth Amendment says that eminent domain must be made ONLY for "public use", not for the transfer from one private party to another - as was the case in Kelo. It strikes me that a public school fits that requirement. Although the neighborhoods mentioned deteriorated, there is no indication that they were vacated for the benefit of any private parties. Did I miss something?

[neverdem]

Although the neighborhoods mentioned deteriorated, there is no indication that they were vacated for the benefit of any private parties. Did I miss something?

Check the second and third paragraph.

"Dewey Street used to be a proud middle-class neighborhood, a chamber of peace and quiet in Newark's gritty heart.

" But last year when the state cleared out tracts of land to build a school, most of the families were driven away. And now that the money for the school has evaporated, more than three dozen lots sit abandoned, one after another."

[Arthalion]

This happens everywhere. I used to know a couple who scraped and saved, and eventually built their dream retirement home on a small country ranchette. A while later the state of California decided that it wanted to build a highway through their living room and began buying property from their neighbors to do it. When they refused to sell, the state filed eminent domain papers and took the property. Before they'd even moved out of the house, the planned highway was realigned and would now only just clip the back edge of their property several hundred yards from their house. The couple was elated, thinking that they'd get to keep their house after all, but it turned out to be wasted happiness. Since the state now owned the property, they had no legal claim to it, and the state REFUSED to sell it back. Even though it no longer had ANY use for 95% of the land on the property, they refused to give it up. The couple eventually took their money and moved out of state.

In a way, it's a good thing they did, because they never saw the worst part of it. When California ran into its budget crisis a few years back, the funds for the highway project were cancelled and the whole thing went into indefinite hold. Six years after the state seized the house, it's still sitting there empty and desolate on its abandoned 15 acre parcel. The four car garage and attached shop burned down last year after some methheads tried to run a drug lab in it, and the local kids use it for parties and a hangout. Supposedly it's been labelled a hazard and will be pushed over sometime soon, but there are still absolutely no plans to do anything with the land.

The most aggravating part of all this is that the state screwed these people out of an incredible amount of wealth. Thanks to new interest in that area, a 15 acre parcel with their beautiful home on it would be worth more than a million dollars today. When they lost it in 1999, the judge awarded them a measly $275,000 for it.

[T.L.Sink]

Thanks for your response but I still don't get any connection to the recent Supreme Court decision. In that case private property was taken from a private owner (which is OK for eminent domain) BUT it was transfered to another private party for greater tax revenue ( which is NOT the PUBLIC use which the Fifth Amendment mandates). The missing link to me is that a public school ADHERES to the "public use" requirement of the Amendment and, beyond that, there is nothing that suggests that the property was taken for the benefit of private parties. The decay of the neighborhoods is not germane to the constitutional question. Perhaps I'm making a connection you never intended.

[Dan from Michigan]

Reminds me of the Poletown section of Detroit.

[neverdem]

Perhaps I'm making a connection you never intended.

You got it. This was a decent and exceptional neighborhood compared to much of Newark. It was ruined by a proper use of eminent domain with good intentions and lousy execution from leftists controlling New Jersey.

EMINENT DOMAIN [How Pittsburgh Democrats hurt the poor & minorities, & destroy jobs & housing]

[Sarajevo]

If you want something royally screwed up, let a politician get involved!

[Calpernia]

>>>Across New Jersey, hundreds of people have been pushed out of their homes for school projects that, it turns out, were only dreams. They were displaced as part of a once-celebrated $8.6 billion program that, instead of creating new schools, has in several instances created new slums.

That is BECAUSE, the pigs that eat at troughs write a grant for the projects and then never do anything with it.

They also take the campaign contributions from the developers....that build the extra condos, developements....that cause the need for the schools...

Lovely pork system.