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 ...
Not Here!
Wow, and it may actually be a casino land grab.
When you give people power, you should not be surprised when they use it, even if they use it to do things you don't like.
You many even support this power, maybe out of ignorance, or that you don't think it will matter to you, or that you know your government only has the most sincere motives for the greater good.
None of those hopes and wishes will count in the day that you wake up to finding you are on the short end of the very stick you handed to your trusted officials.
Kelo is tyranny. It must not be allowed to stand.
Actually, there is something that will stop it: when the perpetrators - all of them - learn that their life expectancy bears a direct relationship to their thievery.
Buck, you are so right. This is the implementation of the first tenant of the communist manifesto, NO PRIVATE PROPERTY. The Supreme Court was absolutely wrong. They've been wrong before, remember, it was the Supreme Court that said that slavery was OK.
"We want to keep it from being developed," explained Supervisor Mike McGowan."
Who in the h*** is we? Does he speak for all the Supervisors? All the residents of the county? I know he doesn't speak for the property owners. He reminds me of people all over our country that move or live in an area and don't want anyone else to move in because it might spoil what they consider to be their's.
All those who wish to take my property must make a calculation if it's worth the price that they will pay to take what is mine!
It is LONG past time that this country puts an end to the tyranny of the Ruling-Eeelites who make the rules that make us serfs on our own property, while they are shielded from the ramifications of their rulings (Souter's place is a prime example!).
The "Tree of Liberty" is mighty parched...
The key in these cases, and with which we must move into the Roberts-Alito Supreme Court involves the precision with which respect for the words, the language of the Constitution must be maintained, and, in the emanent domain cases, restored. They, the precise words, carry the intent of the actions that placed them in the Constitution.
And "use" is not "purpose" and a government or a government entity is not the "public". The Constitutional provision on emanent domain requires that the property will be taken only for "public use". This was clearly, by the founders, and by the courts until the 1950s, understood to mean - a road, a dam, a bridge - things that after the property is taken, will be "used" by "the public".
A group of elected officials that want to run a business do not constitute "the public".
Our emanent domain restriction, "public USE", was intended to permit putting private property where, afterwards, the public, everyone, will use it or obtain use from it (a dam).
To them, an unobstructed view of the Sacramento skyline (which, most likely, would be both lower and narrower had the no-growthers been in charge 50 years ago) is a public use. In their strange world, maintaining the status quo is progress and therefore of benefit to the public.
Even more unsettling is their attitude toward residential property.
The typical "green" politician pins his or her re-election hopes on home values going up 10-15% annually. This is a no-brainer if you have a rapidly-growing area and no cheap land to build on. Buy up farms for "open space" and impose an urban growth boundary and watch property values soar -- except in those areas excluded from further development.
While existing homeowners feel their new-found wealth and borrow against their equity for a Carribean cruise or two, young couples just getting started are often shut out of the housing market.
So you'll see many of these same anti-growth politicians climbing on the "affordable housing" bandwagon -- and imposing even more regulations on property owners and developers.
There's no election anytime soon so Debra J. is free to sound like a conservative for a while.
I'll keep my gun,but they can have my bullets,! :)
The Republicans had better include Kelo prominently in their campaign for US Senate. While the Democrats complain about lost civil rights, real Constitutional rights have been taken away by Kelo.
Read it closer:
The Preservation group is a group of DEVELOPERS!!!!!
I have updated my FMCDH (From My Cold Dead Hands) sign-off with the addition of (BITS).....Blood In The Streets, which I foresee coming soon, due to the enormous increase of the Marxist progressive movement being shoved down the throat of this failing REPUBLIC through the Judicial tyranny of fiat law, the passing of unconstitutional laws by the Legislative and Executive branches of our government and the enormous tax burden placed upon the average American to support unconstitutional programs put forth by Marxist ideology.
I do not advocate revolution. I only think of what I foresee.
FMCDH(BITS)
Tyrants used to fear for their lives. Just ask Saddam Hussein.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
This is the most unamerican thing I've ever seen.
The barbarians are at the gates.
There was far more constitutional justification for the Dredd Scott decision than there was for the Kelo decision.
Interesting that both cases were about property rights.
Hopefully this case will be the one that overturns Kelo.
Can't Congress do something? We need a court to say that: "taking of private property for private use is is a form of involuntary servitude"
Rober Mugabe of Zimbabwe made the taking of private property without just compensation legal. This is the kind of road that five supreme court justices can drag the country down?
IMPEACH THE FIVE!
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