The white house resident has had his own experience with eminent domain. It made him a wealthy man.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=100228 Back in 1989, Bush hauled in the moolah on the stadium built in Arlington, Texas for the Texas Rangers. What's interesting about this one is that the Texas legislature passed a bill allowing the private corporation that owned the Rangers to exercise eminent domain, normally a power reserved for public entities. We're all pretty familiar with condemnation for public projects. It's what the Army Corps of Engineers does to build flood-control dams or Municipalities do to construct water mains or Highway Authorities do to obtain rights-of-way. In the Texas Rangers case the condemnation was on behalf of a handful of private individuals, one of whom was George W. This surprising form of socialism with baseball teams condemning private property for new stadiums is now quite common in the US. It had a particularly sordid ring in the Texas deal. This private corporation condemned not only enough land for a spanking new baseball stadium, but also took an additional 300 acres - yes 300 acres - of surrounding land for commercial development. Arlington residents floated most of the package with jacked-up taxes. These paid for the bonds needed to buy the land. It seems that our no-tax President wasn't ideologically opposed to increasing taxes if it padded his own bank account. The padding was generous: Bush made out like a bandit with his initial investment of $640,000 zooming to a cool $15.4 million in 1998 when he sold out. More details at http://www.mollyivins.com/showMisc.asp?FileName=970509_f1. htm or do google searches on eminent domain and Texas Rangers and stadium to get hundreds of sites on the topic Biofuel@sustainablelists.org wrote: Brian, Her comments were exactly what I was trying to get across in the other thread. Now City Planners can use acquistion of Taxes as a means to take personal propery. There is a situation in Houston in which a family owned river front business is about to lose 300 feet of their property so a developer can build a marina and restaurant - by eminent domain. Guess we will all need powerful corporate lawyers to keep our homes. Larry On 6/24/05, Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thank you so much for the link. The dissenting opinions of Justices > O'Connor and Thomas are what I found most enlightening. I couldn't agree > with them more. > > Brian > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "S Chapin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <Biofuel@sustainablelists.org> > Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 11:03 AM > Subject: [Biofuel] re property taking supreme court > > > > Brian, > > http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/23jun20051201/www.s upremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/04-108.pdf > > or go to Common Dreams .org and look for US Supreme Court link (right side > > somewhere). See also NYT article by Linda Greenhouse. > > Difference between "public use" and "public purpose"? Pfizer > > pharmacueticals will build a research complex. (who are BTW immune under > > the patriot act from lawsuits?) I wonder if under the same arguement > > "public purpose" could enable a community to declare a Wal-Mart eminent > > domain and turn it into a hospital?? > > S. Chapin > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Biofuel mailing list > > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainableli sts.org > > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 > > messages): > > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainableli sts.org > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainableli sts.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
