Posted on 04/23/2011 7:05:23 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
Don’t be fooled by the Donald. Take it from one who knows: I’m a South Jersey gal who was raised on the outskirts of Atlantic City in the looming shadow of Trump’s towers. All through my childhood, casino developers and government bureaucrats joined hands, raised taxes, and made dazzling promises of urban renewal. Then we wised up to the eminent-domain thievery championed by our hometown faux free-marketeers.
America, it’s time you wised up to Donald Trump’s property-redistribution racket, too.
Trump has been wooing conservative activists for months and flirting with a GOP presidential run — first at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and most recently at a tea-party event in South Florida. He touts his business experience, “high aptitude,” and “bragadocious” deal-making abilities. But he’s no more a standard bearer of conservative values, limited government, and constitutional principles than the cast of Jersey Shore.
Too many mega-developers like Trump have achieved success by using and abusing the government’s ability to commandeer private property for purported “public use.” Invoking the Fifth Amendment takings clause, real-estate moguls, parking-garage builders, mall developers, and sports-palace architects have colluded with elected officials to pull off legalized theft in the name of reducing “blight.” Under eminent domain, the definition of “public purpose” has been stretched like Silly Putty to cover everything from roads and bridges to high-end retail stores, baseball stadiums, and casinos.
While casting himself as America’s new constitutional savior, Trump has shown reckless disregard for fundamental private-property rights. In the 1990s, he waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City that stood in the way of Trump’s manifest land development. The real-estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limousine parking lot — Coking’s private property be damned. The nonprofit Institute for Justice, which successfully saved Coking’s home, explained the confiscatory scheme:
Unlike most developers, Donald Trump doesn’t have to negotiate with a private owner when he wants to buy a piece of property, because a governmental agency — the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority or CRDA — will get it for him at a fraction of the market value, even if the current owner refuses to sell. Here is how the process works.
After a developer identifies the parcels of land he wants to acquire and a city planning board approves a casino project, CRDA attempts to confiscate these properties using a process called “eminent domain,” which allows the government to condemn properties “for public use.” Increasingly, though, CRDA and other government entities exercise the power of eminent domain to take property from one private person and give it to another. At the same time, governments give less and less consideration to the necessity of taking property and also ignore the personal loss to the individuals being evicted.
Trump has attempted to use the same tactics in Connecticut and has championed the reviled Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court ruling upholding expansive use of eminent domain. He told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto that he agreed with the ruling “100 percent” and defended the chilling power of government to kick people out of their homes and businesses based on arbitrary determinations:
The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make [an] area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place — now, I know it might not be their choice — but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.
Like most statist promises of bountiful job creation, government-engineered redevelopment math rarely adds up. Trump’s corporations have backed casino-industry bailouts and wealth-redistributing “tax-increment financing” schemes — the very kind of taxpayer-subsidized interventions we’ve seen on a grand scale under the Obama administration.
Championing liberty begins at the local level. There is nothing more fundamental than the principle that a man’s home is his castle. Donald Trump’s career-long willingness to trample this right tells you everything you need to know about his bogus tea-party sideshow.
Most Conservatives don't realize that about the Democrats and imagine that some of them may not be criminals ~ but they're wrong.
I'm not supporting Trump, but I'm not supporting "the Huck" either, or Palin or Bachman. On the other hand I think all these folks are on the right track, and stand head and shoulders over Obama or any of that same ilk.
I cannot support Mit because ~~~~~~ he's probably not a Natural Born Citizen.
I take it that you think it appropriate for government to swipe the SPECULATIVE VALUE of the property? If she was smart enough to buy slum land as an investment and hold it as a business, SHE DESERVES THE PROFIT.
Statists like you have destroyed a potential market in real estate options which would otherwise bundle parcels for large scale use, one that would make entry level housing far cheaper.
Actually BOB GUCCIONE offered MS. Coking 1 million for the property. She turned him down. This is the opposite of what you said, that she offered to sell for 1 million.
Trump himself was very happy that Ms. Coking didn’t sell to Guccione as it allowed him to purchase the casino property for a much lower price.
When AC condemned the property and set it’s value at 251,000.00 Ms. Coking sued and won. Afterwards she offered to sell to Trump for 1.5 million. He refused.
Ms. Coking is a sympathetic character in that she was a small business owner who took on two very rich developers and won. A win for believers in private property everywhere.
The more one learns about The Donald, the more one should become skeptical of him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when did he say that? Twenty, thirty years ago? Surely he doesn't believe that now. He's a changed man. He's one of us.
Was it your expectation that it was the job of the USSC to rewrite ancient state laws to bring them up current with the latest progressive thought on the matter?
BTW, I don't agree that the gub'mnt should be able to take one man's property to give to another man ~ Hamurrabi thought that worth the death penalty, and the Bible has passed along the same idea ~ King Josia (I believe) took a guy's vinyard for his own personal use.
However, we are dealing with a state that's one of the original colonies. The militia there did not put their lives on the line to use the government to steal property, but that's what's happened. The only question is DID THE PEOPLE OF CT FIX THE PROBLEM?
One thing the Donald likes more than girls is money ~ count on it!
Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Goods
The prime location of Vera Coking’s three-story house has attracted unwelcome interest before. In 1983, Bob Guccione tried to purchase the property for $1 million to construct a casino. Vera didn’t sell, so Guccione built a steel and concrete structure all around (even over) her home. When Guccione’s project failed, the land and its structural skeleton was purchased by Trump and razed. In the process of removing the frame, demolition crews started a fire on her rooftop, broke windows, removed her fire escape, and nearly destroyed the entire third story of her home by dropping concrete blocks through the roof. Now dwarfed by the giant 22-story Trump Plaza, Vera’s little home certainly stands in disrepair, but through no fault of her own. (Coking has since filed a lawsuit against the demolition company seeking compensation so she can repair the damage.)
On May 6, 1994, Vera Coking received a letter from CRDA stating that her property had been “appraised” at only $251,250 (nearly $750,000 less than her earlier offer). CRDA offered her that amount to acquire the property and notified her that she would have 30 days to accept or CRDA would institute suit in the Superior Court “to acquire your property through CRDA’s power of eminent domain.” In a May 24, 1994, letter, CRDA Executive Director Nicholas Amato stated in capital letters, “You may be required to move within 90 days after you receive this notice. If you remain in possession of the property after that time, CRDA may be able to have you and your belongings removed by the sheriff.” On July 28, 1994, Susan Ney, Director of Housing Development for CRDA “instructed CRDA’s counsel to commence condemnation proceedings in the Superior Court of New Jersey.”
Vera Coking opposed the condemnation in court, and while the case was pending, Trump continued with construction. The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino was completed; grass was put down on one side of Vera’s property and parking lots operate on the other sides. The only part of the project left is razing Vera’s house and two other buildings on the block. The final project included a new casino (even though Trump’s original plan did not.) In March 1995, the Atlantic County Superior Court ruled that CRDA could not fund projects with new casino space and, because CRDA couldn’t fund the project, it also couldn’t condemn Coking’s and her neighbors’ properties. On November 13, 1996, however, the Appellate Division reversed this decision and stated that the condemnation should go forward.
Vera Coking and her neighbors, who have been similarly mistreated, cannot believe the government can throw them out of their homes and businesses in order to give the property to Trump. Vera Coking explains, “This is my home. This is my castle.”
Vincent Sabatini lives on the same block as Vera. He and his wife own and operate Sabatini’s Italian Restaurant, a family business that put four kids through school. When asked about CRDA’s offer of $700,000 for their property-a figure that wouldn’t even cover the cost of legal fees and starting up a new restaurant-he exclaimed, “I’ve been here for 32 years, and they want to give it to Trump. I don’t want their money. If they left me alone, I’d be happy and sell a few spaghettis.”
Peter Banin and his brother own the third building on Vera’s block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a gold shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to take the money and leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin says, “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1003&Itemid=165
I once stayed in a house not far from this hotel. It was ON THE BEACH, on wooden piers, and it swayed in the wind. Stayed there a couple of days with friends and then we decided we weren't going to drown.
The articles I found report that she ASKED $1,000,000. If you can find a reference to her turning down $1,000,000 provide it. Trump offered her $250,000 which she turned down.
Ms. Coker won nothing. Someday the house will fall down around her. The heirs and assigns will try to get out from under the costs of cleaning the lot at as low cost as possible.
The link is in post# 49
Ms. Coking sold the property in 2007.
You're pathetic. First of all, opposition to Kelo is hardly a progressive matter, as the conservatives on SCOTUS unanimously voted against it.
Second, all of the Fifth has been incorporated except for the grand jury clause. So precedent had been established that SCOTUS could apply the Fifth to state laws.
You Trumpettes truly are making yourselves into an abomination on this site in your efforts to slime FReepers raising legitimate conservative grievances about Trump's past.
That one has Vera ASKING $1,000,000.
It also has the part about ACRDA looking for a replacement developer for Guccione.
Makes a lot of difference in what happened because it forces the writer to do all the "who struck johns" in the correct order.
I think the story you are citing is the first one up on the google.com list ~ and, as we all know, that's because SOMEBOY GOT PAID to list it first! Perhaps the winning lawyers?!
I never thought I would see the day when people here would be cheering for eminent domain abuses for the ‘collective good’ like I have recently. Marx must be cheering.
I’ve also seen some of the same people cheer on Trump calling for confiscatory taxes on the top earners, again, for the ‘collective good’.
I guess when you hope for change, you lose all rationality and will support any clown.
BTW, the Fifth has several points ~ each of which needs illumination by law to fully understand. CT just didn't illuminate the same way Kentucky, Tennesse and West Virginia might ~ where COAL MINE DEVELOPERS could purchase mineral rights without even notifying surface right owners! USSC hasn't touched that one.
You know this isn’t just about the Vera Coking case. There are dozens of other cases like this where Trump ‘greased’ the political wheels to get eminent domain seizures for his personal use. There is the Bridgeport, CT case where Trump pushed out dozens of private businesses and homeowners for the Pleasure Beach resort.
Of course, some here are cheering stomping on individual rights for the ‘collective good’.
Without even having to read the article, that title pretty much covers what I’ve seen lately.
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