Posted on 06/04/2002 6:23:39 AM PDT by calvin sun
Dick and Nancy Saha didn't think of themselves as pioneers when they traded their Delaware County rancher with wall-to-wall carpet for a farm once owned by William Penn's sons. But after you tuck five kids into bed inside a pop-up camper because the 300-year-old farmhouse you're renovating has dirt floors and no plumbing, something inside you changes.
In 1970, the Sahas plunked down $35,000 for 48 acres in the Chester County countryside, just over the hill and around the bend from the seen-better-days city of Coatesville.
Most everything they've done to the property since has come from their hands and hearts. The farmhouse reborn with recycled wood from an old Downingtown mill. The rhubarb, concord grapes and gooseberries planted to sweeten summer suppers.
Lipstick-red poppies are sheltered from the sun by a dogwood parasol. Dick's horses feast on alfalfa grown on six acres at the foot of the hill. The barn cats scarfed up all the koi in Nancy's pond outside the breakfast nook, but at least the fox and deer in the woods remain entertaining.
One daughter loved the homestead so much, she got married on the lawn. Two of the girls are so rooted there they built houses for their families on acreage Dick and Nancy gave as gifts.
Without planning it, the suburbanized Sahas found serenity in the country for three generations. Given how difficult that is these days, who can blame them for fighting to keep it?
On thin ice
And what a battle it's been, ever since Coatesville decided to take their land and build a giant recreation complex - as if golf and go-carts can reverse a steel city's slide.
Six years ago, one of my first assignments at this newspaper was to write about the plight of Coatesville, a town hit hard by bypasses, malls and suburban sprawl. There was talk of sprucing up the main drag and doing away with all the drug dealing - anything to get people back into town.
A few years later, officials decided that a $60 million 230-acre fun zone with bowling, ice skating and rock climbing would provide the necessary jobs and income to give Coatesville a much-needed makeover. And they knew just where to put it: in Valley Township, outside city limits.
Never mind that city folk - especially the poor, elderly and immigrants - aren't likely to use the front or back nine. Never mind that wealthy suburbanites who do will come and go in Land Rovers, never dropping cleat in Coatesville proper.
Never mind that the city doesn't even own the land in question. That's what eminent domain is for, right?
Coatesville's threats to condemn and seize the property paid off, with many owners giving in and selling out. The Sahas simply refused.
Teed off
"It would be one thing if they wanted our land for something necessary, like a school or a highway," Dick Saha 72, explains. "But a golf course?"
The Sahas have caused a bona fide standoff, full of requisite drama. In April, their son Ricky was arrested for threatening a city councilman. In May, someone set their barn on fire.
And, at another heated meeting last week, a politician ordered their 12-year-old granddaughter to put down a sign she was holding because it was "profane." (To see her controversial caricature, go to the Saha Web site, www.saveourfarm.com.)
Pete DiMaio doesn't need the Net to know the Sahas are right to fight.
Pete was hemming pants in his tailor shop and dry cleaners downtown when I first met him in 1996, and he was still at it when I dropped by last week.
Remember all the empty storefronts? Look around, he says, still there. That revitalization we talked about? Pete's 78. He's still waiting.
If Coatesville wants to reinvent itself, Pete says, it better start by bringing useful businesses downtown, like clothing shops, restaurants, a grocery. Who does he know who would pay to climb a fake rock wall, anyway?
All this nonsense about taking people's property has Pete thinking, once again, about closing for good. If this is Coatesville's bright future, he thinks he'd rather not be around to see it.
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at 215-854-4670 or myant@phillynews.com.
When someone holds the loaded gun of eminent domain to your head, some turn into 'willing' sellers.
Everybody has a price.
And it is the Owners right to accept or reject the offer -- even if it is 'reasonable', excepting only those things mentioned in the Constitution. I don't believe a golf course, or a museum, merit such use by government.
Article I, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to...
To establish post offices and post roads;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;Amendment V
...nor shall any person...
...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Well, "other needful buildings" provides a loophole big enough to drive a Mack Truck through, as far as the federal Constitution is concerned. But in the Saha's situation, we're discussing the State's right (and local government's) of eminent domain.
Show me where the Federal Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from exercising its power of eminent domain for lawful purposes defined by Pennsylvania's Constitution.
Look at this thread....that arrogant man calls those who oppose the plan and happen to live elsewhere essential gadflies that like conflict. Perhaps he would be interested in knowing that there have been times I have wanted to write letters to the editor of my town paper, but have decided against it just to try to not start a big controversy. I am the "Roy Waggoner" listed in the article and I am a little angry he would accuse me of just opposing his little plan for the sake of opposing something.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.