Posted on 05/22/2008 7:58:15 AM PDT by SmithL
It's back. Yet another initiative – Proposition 98 – is on the ballot masquerading as "eminent domain" reform and trying to scare people with the prospect that their homes might be "taken" by the government.
Yet Proposition 98 is really about a sweeping agenda to lard up the California Constitution to end forever the ability of local governments to enact rent control or affordable housing ordinances, to set rules that set liquor store hours or to require developers to pay fees to build schools.
In Sacramento, for example, the city's Mixed-Income Housing Ordinance would go if Prop. 98 passes. Whether to set requirements for affordable housing is something city residents and officials should be able to decide. It is not something that should be banned by the state constitution.
The worst part of Proposition 98 is a vague line prohibiting any regulation that would "transfer an economic benefit to one or more private persons at the expense of the private owner." What? Any regulation that has a broad public purpose – such as limiting the number of liquor licenses – might incidentally benefit some private individuals over others. All these could be wiped out.
This initiative also would ban government from using eminent domain for "consumption of natural resources." Be ready to say goodbye to future water storage facilities and energy projects if Proposition 98 passes.
Voters should reject Proposition 98 as they rejected a similarly sweeping initiative in 2006. Proposition 98 advocates are trying to capitalize on public sentiment against the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London. But California is not Connecticut. Here eminent domain for redevelopment can be used only to remove blight, and that power is rarely used.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Prop 98 is indeed the good one. : )
The SacBee does not fail to disappoint!
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Here eminent domain for redevelopment can be used only to remove blight, and that power is rarely used.
If the City of Oakland shut down a tire company, with what was it replaced?
The definition of “blight” is so vague that the City of Beverly Hills wanted a redevelopment agency! Can anyone imagine Beverly Hills with ANY parcel of property within its city limits described as blighted? Give me a freakin’ break!
The redevelopment agencies (either cronies of the mayor and/or city council or members of the city council itself) help themselves - without oversight - to all the monies over and above the initial assessment of the “blighted” property. In other words, the city gets the taxes off the “blighted” property but the redevelopment agency gets all the monies over and above the original assessment - for upwards of 45 years. Thus, the city never sees a penny of the “new” monies for fire/police, other city services as all the money goes to the redevelopment agency to do as it chooses with the money. (Anyone remember when Hollywood, CA took $25,000 out of the redevelopment money and spent it on glitter to spread on Sunset and/or Hollywood Boulevards?)
In Orange County, California, Supervisor Chris Norby is dead set against redevelopment and has been fighting it for years, thank God! One of the things that Chris Norby’s assistant, Bruce Whitaker, noted was that cities WITHOUT redevelopment agencies were more prosperous than cities WITH a redevelopment agency.
AARP is running an ad against Prop 98.
Scaring seniors, as usual.
Too bad they aren’t looking our for seniors that own property.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqANQQQno3g
This is remarkable beyond words!
Feel-good socialism run amok and masquerading as news.
"Developers" don't pay a thing.
People who buy the homes, or who pay increased prices for goods as a result of rent-inflation pay every cent of that "invisible tax money"
YES on 98
NO on 99!
Wrong!
The way 99 is written, even if 98 gets more votes, a simple majority for 99 invalidates 98.
You think the average (unconscious) voter can tell?
Posts like this one make me lose hope.
Obviously, the reader has not done his homework.
Prop 99 was created explicitly to prevent 98 from passing. Nothing else.
Prop 98 scared the tax-and-spend crowd into hysterics.
Prop 99 is the response.
NO on 99!
“...even if 98 gets more votes, a simple majority for 99 invalidates 98.”
The left in this state gets more and more ingenious. I have not heard of this tactic before. There has been dueling propositions before, but not like this.
Is that even really legal? Even if prop 98 wins, if prop 99 gets a “simple majority”, it wins INSTEAD? How can that be?
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