Posted on 06/05/2002 7:58:19 AM PDT by brityank
Will people lose their homes...
Eviction Notice
By Mike Lynch
For a brief moment in March, Susette Kelo of New London, Connecticut, thought she had saved her home. After all, Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Corradino had ruled that the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), an organization set up to take over her Fort Trumbull neighborhood, couldn't take her house through eminent domain. But then she got her hands on the decision. "As I read, I realized that I had won the right to stay, but really only to fight again," says Kelo, who after four and a half years of battling the NLDC describes herself as a tortured homeowner. "My concern is that they will come back with a legitimate plan and I don't know what will happen."
She's right to be concerned. The 247-page decision was double-spaced, a feature that, as NLDC chief operating officer Dave Goebel says, provides plenty of space to read between the lines. And the lesson Goebel took from the decision, which is now on appeal, is that the judge rejected his land grab not because it's unconstitutional for governments to take property from one citizen only to hand it to another, but because he had no concrete plans as to whom was going to get Kelo's property. "All that means is that once you have a valid project you can take the land," says Goebel. "There was a project we had in mind, and that was putting the National Coast Guard museum on that site." So now Kelo and her neighbors fear forcible eviction if the Coast Guard decides it wants her plot of land.
Should it? In seven of the last 10 years, the Coast Guard has had to rely on emergency appropriations, those normally reserved for farmers and hurricane victims, to carry out its mission of keeping boaters safe, ports secure, and drug prices high. President Bush promised to boost its budget $1.6 billion, to $7.1 billion, for 2003. But nearly half the increase is going straight into the military retirement fund, and the service will surely be back asking for more. An inspector general report finds that the Coast Guard is doubling its effort on homeland security, and that this will leave it short in other critical areas, such as search and rescue staffing.
So why, in a time of war, should it be spending its scarce resources on a damn museum?
The Coast Guard is being cagey. It understandably doesn't want to get involved in an ugly eminent domain fight, and it promises to stay out of the court battles. Yet it plans to sign a memorandum of agreement with the NLDC to accept, as a gift, property for its museum. Its preferred site happens to include plots of land that Kelo and others call home. Coast Guard spokesmen won't commit to not accepting land taken through eminent domain. They say they will only accept land obtained legally, which may very well include forcible eviction.
The NLDC's Goebel says he expects the Coast Guard to sign up. He has no other plans for the area.
That's not to say that no one else does. "What I find ironic is everyone saying what they want to do on this property," says Matt Dery, Kelo's neighbor, whose family has lived in its Fort Trumbull homestead since 1901. "What they forget is that there is someone else living there--us."
Kelo understands why the Coast Guard would want her land. "They want my property as much as I do," she says. "The only problem is that I was here first."
Mike Lynch is Reason Foundation's national correspondent.
Copyright (C) 2002 Freedom.org, All rights reserved
Based on this -- tar and feathers is too good for this scumbag.
Seems the Sahas in PA aren't the only ones getting hosed by self-appointed Masters.
Unfortunately, the author of this article fails to explain the reason.
Why would the Coasties want the Kelo property and not somebody else's?
I don't know.
But if I had to guess, the only valid reason would be that it adjoins existing Coast Guard property. (If it doesn't, let the Coast Guard build their museum at some other location that does.)
Once again, it comes down to whether or not the Kelos are being offered "just compensation" for their property. Without additional information, we have no way of evaluating whether this is a situation of socialist bureacrats trying to screw property owners, or property owners trying to screw the taxpayers.
I have no problems with building a museum (or series of small museums scatter around our nation) to honor those who have served in the Coast Guard. I also think that there are plenty of existing sites (such as decommisioned lighthouses) that could be refurbished/preserved to fulfill this purpose. Should adjacent property be needed to facilitate parking, etc., fine. Such property owners should be justly compensated without screwing the taxpayers.
Fair market value is always a contentious issue.
So what else is new?
It's more childish than anything else- may be just a random mailing from someone's ebox that got contaminated, although I saw a definite upsurge as I sent links more and more damning of the clinton's corrupt tenure and their culpability in 911, Enron, etc.
Carolyn
So now Kelo and her neighbors fear forcible eviction ... ...Could be she was the first one with both the time and treasure to go against the NLDC; court actions like this aren't cheap. As I said before, it is the Owners right to accept or reject the offer -- even if it is 'reasonable', excepting only those things mentioned in the Constitution. A museum isn't one, and as you ably pointed out, there are decommed sites around.
BTT
If any one would like to be removed from my CT Bump list, please let me know and it will be done ASAP. Conversely, if you would like to be added the same holds true.
Article I, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to...
To establish post offices and post roads;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;Amendment V
...nor shall any person...
...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And as I stated before, the "other needful buildings" clause provides a loophole big enough to drive a Mack Truck through.
Additionally, I suspect that the New London Development Corporation would be exercising the state's right of eminent domain, not the federal government's right. Therefore you're stuck with trying to show me where the federal Constitution specificly restricts Connecticut's right to do so.
Not big enough to accommodate National Forests, Parks, Monumnets, and Wilderness Areas.
As far as a Coast Guard Museum is concerned, are they not building a light house museum on Staten Island, with all it's light houses and all? Just stuff the Coast Guard in there. Better still, build it adjacent to the USGC Academy on the other side of RT-95. I very much doubt that a museum is going to help the place much. What they really need is another massive private project, like the Phizer research complex that is across from this area.
The land is question is part of a neighborhood located next to Fort Trumbull State park also adjoining much of what used to be the Naval underwater Wafare center which has since relocated. It is on the Thames River in New London Ct with sea breezes and some very nice views of the River and Long Island Sound. The neighboorhood in question sewemed dilapidatesd some years ago bur most of the houses though old are well maintained and are home to many who are not of the new "gentry" or of any minority. Pfizer just built a very large office complex nearby. Fort Trubull is now a state park but has piers where nuclear subs used to dock so that a strike at the Bridges of New London would not trap them at the sub base proper docks. There is a small Coast Guard station in the neighborhood. A few miles upstream past the center of town there is the US Coast Guard Academy. By taking land under eminent domain and then bringing in developers many millions can be made as the location with its limited access because of the way the railroad tracks lie and the bends in the riverbank would make an ideal gated very exclusive community with a beutiful park as its centerpiece.
This is about power and greed.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Then I would guess, that as a Nevada resident, you firmly approve of the Fed proposal to turn your state into a nuclear depository? The reason we are in as poor a shape as we are is purely because too many bureaucrats have the same attitude you seem to -- exploit the loopholes and to hell with the individual and his consequences. Much as I like and support them, museums do not constitute 'needful buildings' under any governmental definition you could raise.
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