There was a great story on 60 minutes about a year ago about eminent domain.
The mayor of a suburb of Cleveland
wanted more tax base so she drafted criteria that homes were blighted if they
did not have two bedrooms and an attached
garage... which actually would have included her own home, if not located in
another area. This criteria would take out a good
half of Nokomis due to garages not being attached. The Institute for Justice
fought for the homeowners and won... which was not
the case last week.
Eminent domain has been around a long time but in Minneapolis, the not so
blantant acquisitions have been under the disguise
of zoning. The city does not want that Service Station on the corner...change
the zoning, make the owner jump through enough hoops
until there are no more hoops to jump through, slowly destroy their business by
making demands which are costing the owner more
and more... with revenues less and less. This does not include the legal fees
the owner has incurred believing he has rights and will
fight for them. The case of the building on Lowry...one of her statements
including the question about purchasing 35 new windows.
Good point...if the building was going to be gone within a year...why the new
windows..City? I am assuming that each window cost about
$450.00... times 35. Close to a 16 thousand dollar investment for one years
time? Is the city going to write that into her remuneration?
Private citizens and private property should be respected whether they are
developers or not. Zoning laws should be respectful of private
citizens whether they own the land or not. Just because someone has private
sums... does not mean they should have carte blanche
over the citizenry. Just because Minneapolis has the largest budget for
building (CPED), over police, fire, services, than any city around...doesn't
mean we need to have Harlequins standing with their hands out for a dole. You
want to build a building.. go to the bank...borrow the money,
get a loan like the rest of us. Then in clear conscious...name it after
yourself. I think most of the buildings should be renamed...Taxpayer's
Sport Center, Citizen' s Stadium, Middleclass Metro, etc.
The true sadness in all this....the erosion of rights of the common citizen.
His house can be taken away if the lot can be used for a higher
and better use. The government expects and gets market value on their
land...heaven only knows how they could afford that parcel of land in the first
place. The citizen gets what he/she gets and better be
thankful if it's dimes on the dollar. We talk about taxes, honoring private
citizens with sums of money,
builders with vision...scorn the noisemakers... does it not seem strange that
no one is talking about OUR rights being taken away and
what are WE going to do about it.
Dorie Rae Gallagher/Nokomis/10mg!
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