Fight the power of eminent domain

The Orange County Register ^ | March 26, 2006 | STEVEN GREENHUT

[george76]

City officials use fanciful arguments to explain why, say, a Costco is a public purpose because it brings in more tax revenue than the neighborhood that was there before it.

With that simple twist of a phrase, essential constitutional property protections have been obliterated.

You might own a small warehouse, but a developer wants to build a new high rise on the site.

The government will come in and offer you the value of the warehouse (and will usually lowball the price and often force you to go to court to get a higher price, where you will pay your own legal fees).

Then the city turns the land over to a favored developer, who gains vast value in the changed use from warehouses to high rise.

City officials and developers have been trying to convince the public that none of these changes are necessary, that property rights are safe and sound in California.

But that's a lie.

Take a look at Long Beach, where the City Council voted 6-0 this month to take the Filipino Baptist Fellowship Church and give it to a condo developer.

The church building is quite nice, by no means a blighted facility, but the property is in a prime location near downtown.

Such abuses will continue unabated until the state passes an initiative similar to the one being circulated.

So, don't get angry and don't give yourself heartburn over the ongoing injustices.

Get busy circulating petitions and getting voters out to the polls once Protect Our Homes qualifies for the ballot.

[lesser_satan]

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[Arrowhead]

I am the founder of an adjunct association of associations in the state of Indiana who has sought for the last three years to eliminate the property tax within our state. I have wrote a treatise upon the justifications of elimination. I am convinced that eliminating the property tax would stop all this hocus pocus that local governments and developers are perpetrating upon homeowners. If you would like a copy of the treatise, please feel free to contact me at arrow_associates@earthlink.net Free of course...I never charge a dime for this kind of work because it should be implemented by all states. Give me word.

Arrowhead>>>--property tax-->