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SAUNDERS: Another government taking
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/5/6 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 02/05/2006 8:12:29 AM PST by SmithL

CONAWAY RANCH is a 17,300-acre spread north of Davis. On property that sidles up to I-5 and provides a fine view of the Sacramento skyline, owners grow rice and alfalfa, boast rights to 50,000 acre-feet of water and extract natural gas. The gray sky and Sierra runoff are home to countless birds -- ducks, egrets and hawks -- some of which the owners hunt.

Yolo County wants the land. In 2004, county supervisors voted to seize the ranch by eminent domain. "We want to keep it from being developed," explained Supervisor Mike McGowan.

The owners are fighting back, and they're media savvy.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous Kelo decision -- which supported the seizure by New London, Conn., of taxpayers' waterfront homes so that the properties could be handed over to private development. Americans on the left and right were outraged at this expansive definition of a "public use" taking.

Then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in her dissent, "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Now the owners -- a group of developers that calls itself the Conaway Preservation Group and bought the property after Yolo commenced the eminent-domain action -- are arguing that what Yolo wants to do is worse than Kelo.

Spokesman Tovey Giezentanner argues that while Kelo was outrageous -- for it allowed local governments to seize homes and hand them over to private developers -- if Yolo wins, it will be the first time the "government got into the business of trying to run an existing business." There will be nothing to stop the governments from seizing other profitable businesses -- parking garages, farms,

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: conawayranch; eminentdomain; governmenttheft; kelo; propertyrights
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To: FOG724

ping


21 posted on 02/05/2006 3:30:16 PM PST by Seadog Bytes (OPM - The Liberal 'solution' to every societal problem (...Other People's Money))
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To: logician2u

We do not have to "try" to understand their mentality. We understand it quite well, in all its absurd permutations.

What many of these Marxists are missing (or refusing to admit to the public if they understand how wrong they are) is that the framers put in many of our rights AGAINST THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT, no matter how "Democratic", no matter how "representative" was the process that brought the proposed government action into being and no matter how benevolent those representatives think is their purpose.

Many government proposals concerning land use have constitutional means without emanent domain. Simply purchase parcels of the land on the open market, offering the highest price to the owner when the owner is willing to sell them. Admit to the taxpayers that such purchases may require taking some debt (bonds) temporarily, until all the desired lots are able to be purchased and successfully acquired; with the bonds paid off when the goverment resells the land. But, the real reason these legal, and most likely not financially bad means, are not used is that the motives are often as political as economic and its not that someone else might not do the same thing privately, but that the end result will bypass their political control. It is seldom about "public interest" and nearly always about political interest.


22 posted on 02/05/2006 6:33:03 PM PST by Wuli
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