Pa. high court refuses to hear case to save Saha family's Chesco farm

Associated Press ^ | Mon, Dec. 15, 2003 | AP

[Fun Bob]

Title: Pa. high court refuses to hear case to save Saha family's Chesco farm

Subtitle: Officials say the 48-acre parcel is key to revitalizing Coatesville. The family has now run out of legal options.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of a Chester County family fighting to save its 48-acre horse farm from being turned into a golf course.

Dick and Nancy Saha of Valley Township have been battling for more than four years to prevent the city of Coatesville from seizing their land for a recreation complex.

"It's devastating," Rick Saha, the couple's son, said of the Supreme Court's refusal to take the case. The decision exhausted the Sahas' legal options.

Coatesville city officials said they hoped the one-sentence order handed down by the state's highest court on Tuesday would allow the two sides to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.

"I'm hoping this will open up the door so we can at least sit down and talk," Coatesville City Councilwoman Carmen Green said.

Coatesville wants to seize the Sahas' property as part of plans for a $60 million recreation complex that would include a golf course, bowling alley and skating rinks. City Manager Paul Janssen has said the park is a key part of efforts to revitalize Coatesville, an old steel town that lost thousands of jobs in the 1970s and 1980s.

The legal fight has revolved around a Pennsylvania law that allows cities, even small ones such as Coatesville, which has a population of 11,000, to seize property in adjoining municipalities if it serves a public interest. In April, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled that Coatesville could legally take the property, even though it is in neighboring Valley Township.

City officials have said the plan would allow the Sahas to retain the small corner of the property that contains their home, a 250-year-old farmhouse that they rebuilt. The Sahas have lived on the farm with their children for 30 years.

Though his parents are apparently out of legal options, Rick Saha said there were "other avenues" that could help the family's fight.

In November, Coatesville voters approved three amendments to the city's charter that require the city to get voter approval before condemning any land, including the Sahas'. The amendments were retroactive.

Also, owners of area golf courses, bowling alleys and ice rinks filed suit against the city in September seeking to halt construction of the recreation center.

Janssen said the city would have no immediate comment on the pending legal actions. "City Council will be meeting shortly to discuss these matters," he said.

However, Janssen said he hoped that the Sahas and the city would be able to negotiate. "We are hoping to reach a settlement that is agreeable to them and still allows for the project to proceed forward," he said.

[Fun Bob]

Since when has imminent domain lost the meaning of public works and allowed municipalities to grab land to build private business to increase the tax base or create jobs? This is messed up. This is theft.

[fishtank]

I'm no expert on this, but this has been going on for quite a while now.

[scory]

I have read several articles in the past couple of years about situations like this one. If I read this right this one is especially egregious as apparently even the private developers don't want to build the thing. And yes, government seizure of private property to be turned over to private developement strikes me as misuse of Emminent Domain. But the courts have upheld this kind of thing before so it is "legal". Just another example of the Constitution becoming less and less relevant while the whims and fads of our rulers take on the stature of "The Rule of Law".

[TruthNtegrity]

What you said.

I find this eminent domain thing is getting out of control and it scares me to death. What if, someday, I'm living where some municipality wants my land for something, and I'm forced to hand it over, for whatever they want to pay?

This is not Constitutional, but I don't even know who to write, to complain about this.

[Looking4Truth]

This is not Constitutional, but I don't even know who to write, to complain about this.

Try: B.L.O.A.T.

7777 Never Lane

F.M.C.D.H., USA 00000

[lelio]

Coatesville wants to seize the Sahas' property as part of plans for a $60 million recreation complex that would include a golf course, bowling alley and skating rinks.

Besides trampling all over their private property rights, has "revitalization" ever proven itself to work?

Or put it this way: there's a reason there isn't a skating rink in Coatesville.

[Bob Mc]

"This is not Constitutional, but I don't even know who to write, to complain about this."

You can't complain when government does not follow the Constitution.

This is why the founding fathers included the 2nd Amendment.

[blackdog]

My advice to the family is to immediately report spills of diesel, Glyphosphate, and a whole array of agricultural use chemicals. The ensuing EPA involvment will tie the parcel up for a decade and preclude(trump)city development.

They can file a police report indicating urban youth in need of additional bowling and golf facilities vandalized their property, causing the spills.

[laconic]

I thought the people of Coatesville overrode their local "leaders" and voted this idiocy down last fall. I guess its like local stadiums, where the voters have turned down sales tax increases to fund them, and they get built at the taxpayers' expense anyway.

[blackdog]

Find an endangered plant, obtain a bunch, and transplant them onto the property. Obtain some dynamite and bury it on the property willy-nilly, to later report the find while plowing up a hayfield and "discovering" a stick or two. Strike a 3" pipe into the ground until you hit an aquafer on property low spots, then let the natural wetlands begin. The pipes will silt up after about five years and the flow will stop unless you periodically fire a rifle shot down the pipe. Find some eagle nests in Utah, capture the birds and nests, place them in trees on your property and keep lot's of eagle food around. Get a few handulls of Lynx fur and deposit it in the brush, making it critical habitat for lynx(the feds did this and it worked).

Just some ideas from the workings of my upper paddock.

[lelio]

My advice to the family is to immediately report spills of diesel

Or if you've got a more ecological bent: find out what endangered species flies overhead and say that you saw one nest on your property a dozen years ago. Just waiting for it to come back will tie up this government intrusion for years.

Can't they find some willing sellers for their much needed skating rink?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[blackdog]

Report anthrax deaths in your horses or livestock. The feds will never leave.

[blackdog]

see #10. The key to this is to use the powers of the federal machine against the locals. The family should have enrolled this land into the CRP allocation as soon as they got first wind of this. It would have locked it up for ten years.

[templar]

This is not Constitutional, but I don't even know who to write, to complain about this

It's not who you write that matters. It's who you elect. (Hint: Democrats and Republicans aren't going to do anything about it, they caused it).

[blackdog]

Just this reason is also why I developed my property as an airport. Once that thing is charted and in the system, not even the local cops can come on your property. The feds, yes, but not locals.

It's all turf, surrounded by hay, pasture, and grain fields, essentially undisturbed.

If you obtain a federal or state grant to add runway lighting, a beacon, or other improvements it's locked up as airport use for a minimum of twenty years. Just apply for a new grant every ten.

[justrepublican]

The legal fight has revolved around a Pennsylvania law that allows cities, even small ones such as Coatesville, which has a population of 11,000 -----------socialist-----------, to seize property in adjoining municipalities if it serves a public interest. In April, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled that Coatesville could legally take the property, even though it is in neighboring Valley Township.

[supercat]

If you obtain a federal or state grant to add runway lighting, a beacon, or other improvements it's locked up as airport use for a minimum of twenty years. Just apply for a new grant every ten.

Unless King Richard M. Daley decides to tear it up.

[blackdog]

I'm quite familiar with that one.......

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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