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If you want to see how Gov. works.

This is a email reply I got back from a person who works in this field when I forward him this post

In his email the person had the means and the abilty to fight back. And get whats due.

Santa Cruz considers eminent domain on long-empty downtown lot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1292948/posts

It's sure better then the case I had awhile back in LA. The city took this guys property, which had a liquor store, deli, check cashing service & was Grossing $300K to $350K PER MONTH.

He had a big corner where all the trucks come off the docks unto Alameda St. & the semis could pull in & pick up a sandwich & a drink. The next closest liquor store was 3 mi. away, & this was the closest to the docks & a big marina for pleasure boats.

The city of L.A gave him a generous $79,000 Yes, that was it, they said since the land was zoned industrial that was all the land was worth.

The building would still be standing, but the new R/W line was 3 ft. from the front of the building & there was to be no access. They said he could do something with the building. It was a complex case since the Koreans who owned it just said give us our $500,000 relocation & loss of business amount & we go back to Korea.

The Koreans who had sold it, sold it for 2 million, $750K for the real estate, the rest for the business & inventory & the down payment had been $250,000, the rest only had the real estate as security. The buyers were just going to walk away with the relocation money & leave the sellers holding the bag. It took awhile to get the 2 Korean sellers into the case, but the atty did & they had to start a foreclosure against the buyers to be able to get to court..

We settled on the court house steps for $1,800,000 ,(Inc the business but no inventory) PLUS the $500,000 relocation fee, PLUS, the city had to buy two adjacent lots and pay for the construction of a new building on the two lots, AND provide access to the new property from Alameda St. The appraiser for the city was still saying., how can an industrially zoned property be worth that.

I asked the city Real Estate Dept. manager how they could justify using an appraiser like that. He said, "We love his work, we use him all the time" That is why cities using eminent domain get such a bad rap.

Now, here is the best part, 6 mo later I was at a legal seminar & had lunch with 4 attys, 3 from the City of L.A. I brought up that I had just been the appraiser on a big case against the city & they knew which one right away. One said she had been assigned the case but knew the case was really bad & got out of it. The city put a brand new atty on, (the city hired an outside law firm also), & the city attorneys office had a betting pool as to how big the city was going to take a hit when they found the case was going to court.

Also, think of all the other folks who's property was taken using this type of appraiser and who could not afford to go to court or who did not get a really good attorney (and of course that attorney hiring a really good appraiser on the case).

So that's what happens in many of these cases. Also, many cases in Redev. are not blighted at all, but they use that to cozy up to a particular developer.

This case does not seem like that however & in this case I agree with the city. I don't know what the lot is really worth, but $70/sq.ft. for an ugly looking hole in the ground does not seem out of line. PS The atty & the clients felt I did such a good job they gave me a $2000 bonus on top of the fee I billed-only the 2nd time in my career that has happened!)

"It is time to spill some tea all over again."

Danny isn’t alone! Last Friday I thought I was the only one who was actually physically shaken by the Supremes decision that we no longer actually own our land; why shouldn’t we be angry and physically shaken? How many thousands of times have we heard…”the American dream to own a home”, well it turns out, at least to you, Danny and me, that it was a dream!
The Supremes, in a thought process that defies logic have slapped us in the face and awakened us from this dream. We have been awakened from a dream only to be forced into a nightmare. In our nightmare we have learned that we are merely the folks who have been allowed, by the Government, to dream for over 200 years that we actually own land. In this nightmare we find that the Government really owns all the land and we are nothing more than Legal Squatters that the Local, State and Federal governments will put up with as long as we agree to pay the taxes that will be levied…until another potential squatter agrees, in advance, to pay more.

When we awake from most dreams we forget what it was that we dreamt; you, Danny and I didn’t. When we do remember our dreams the image often fades quickly. I don’t want to forget this dream. Never want to forget this dream!

I won’t quote from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights because, it seems, these are now only words that can be reinterpreted as the needs of the Government change. The original Contract, we were given, says that it is our God given Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…is this a dream too?

I think it’s now up to us to put the meaning back into the words. It is time to put up or shut up. I think it’s time that we take our dream back. Do you?

“It is time to spill some tea all over again” I’m ready, let’s go spill some.

The Bill of Rights is the section of the Constitution that grants explicit power to the people. When Madison asked Jefferson what he thought of the Constitution, Jefferson felt it was a great design for a government but it offered nothing to the people. Jefferson felt that if the founders guaranteed rights to the people, that long term stability of the government was assured. Jefferson suggested they start with the things that had so infuriated the colonists against the British.

In short the first 10 Amendments are designed to limit the power of the government and to grant power to the people. It is a desecration that anything in the first 10 Amendments ever be used to expand the power of government. That is probably the most disturbing point in the eminent domain decision. The justices cited the amendments for the people to expand the power of the government.