Poll: Eminent domain

[Fabiola]

Although I have seen many unfair situation where the propety is tokk from its owner, I do believe aon that. If you think about environmental issues or land destribution for agriculture prodution, or even for power plant, I believe the idea is good and shoul work.
Fabíola.

[Tom]

It's just my opinion, but.....

I think we should be real careful in how we look at the use of eminent domain.  The question was posed about Taking private property from its owners to give to other "private parties" for profit-making ventures.

The use of condemnation of private lands for the purpose of taking them away from their owners is a dangerous, but perhaps necessary, procedure to advocate in a "Free" society.  It, like the "death penalty", should be used with the utmost discretion. Greed and selfishness find openings in laws like this to allow the Bullies of the world to take advantage of the meek.  Contrary to popular belief, "do unto your brethren before they can do unto you", isn't the true philosophy.  As a citizen of this Free country we have been brought up to believe that we have rights as owners of private property  Those rights are reinforced with laws on trespass, thievery, inheritance, etc.  Condemnation by eminent domain flies on the edge of morality and is only approved because of necessity to provide for Roads and other "government" structures that will benefit the population as a whole.  When efforts are made to use eminent domain laws to benefit private entities by transfer of title from one private owner to another, especially for profit, then the rights of citizens have been usurped and the government and private entities applying the law are guilty of trespass, thievery as well as moral indiscrimination's.

[Patty]

Well said, Tom. I could not agree more.  ;)

[OneWithWood]

I will second that!  Tom, you response is right on the money.

[iain]

Tomo
          good writing, and that applies for quite a lot of things "that are for the public benefit" ;) >:(


   iain

[bberry]

  The court case in Conn. is about public taking of private land and then turning it over to other private owners so they can develop it which then turns the land into high tax real estate. That one is going to the Supreme Court with the support of the National Farm Bureau. Pray it wins. How could it even get that far is beyond me. Not much different than the old claim jumpers of the gold rush. Pray they win or we're all in trouble. Vote term limits and caps on goverment spending and maybe they will have less money of ours to throw away. We need a law suit concerning our rights of persuit of happiness that was given to us by our fore fathers.

[maple flats]

Tom, you hit the nail on the head. I agree fully.  In my local area the state took land to widen a highway from 2 lane to a 4 lane devided back in the 50's and 60's, now 50 years later they still have not built the highway. The only thing they have done is grade out the area for the devided highway (done in the early 60's) and it just sits there. The homes there were moved back about 200' on average (more snow to plow) and the farms are all gone but our state spent millions and wasted it. They seem to see "real needs" or so the polititions so claim but they just waste the taxpayers $ big time. I feel a real need for term limits for all public office. Another thing I firmly believe is that these polititions should not be so highly paid. They claim that for less you can't get qualified people, well, we don't have any now. If the pay was cut to the level a true working man now makes I feel we would get some true working men who are honest and want to SERVE would then do it. Our government is way too large, do you realize that Abe Lincoln ran the cival war with just himself and his secretary. (sorry, don't mean to stir up you boys down south, just making a point, WE HAVE TOO MUCH government) Back to eminant domain, I think it should only be for very limited uses, Cedarman was close, but pay 5 times appraised value if you have unwilling sellers and set up a requirement that the land must be used within a reasonable time for the stated purpose and never for private development. We don't need a bigger tax base, we need smaller government and NO waste. We must make our "leaders" accountable to us. Heck, maybe this forum should run the government, I hear a lot of real good people who really want to serve their fellow man. Well, I've been too long winded again! :-[ :-[ 8) 8) 8)

[WH_Conley]

It's hard not to be long winded when yer hittin the nail right square on the head.

I've tried not to get on a rant about this because at the speed I type I would probably starve to death before I got done.

[Cedarman]

Look around you. Are you or your neighbors using your resources at the wisest and best use at all times?  Do you have land that lays fallow? Are you growing the maximum board feet per acre?  Let's condemn your land because my company can maximize the economic potential of it.  ;DWith this new philosophy any persons land can be taken by government and sold to other private enterprizes. With this camel's nose in the tent, we can hold no private property sacred. I see the camels front legs heading in.   Maybe we should all start our own little churches and make our holdings non profit.
They tried to get zoning in orange co In.  The proponents backed down after several death threats came their way.
The best way is to become proactive, either as an individual or as part of a group. How many of you belong to a woodland owners group?

Each of us should call and write all of our elected officials and explain why we feel this way. Don't rant and rave at them, simple state your case and ask them to support you. Do not let them be wishy washy. When candidates run for office ask them questions at town meetings.

Most elected officials hear from so few of us that our voices really do carry weight.

A few weeks ago I talked with two of our local reps on a right to practice forestry that had passed the state senate. The reps had not heard about the bill yet, but asked a lot of questions and I felt that they would help it pass. I will know later how they voted. I chatted with one for 15 minutes and the other for about 5. One on one lobbying is as good as it gets.

[maple flats]

Great job Cedarman, more of us should do that.

[Ron Wenrich]

I was waiting to see how long it would take for someone to see how far this could go.  That was my original thought on eminent domain.  Is zoning eminent domain?

What really frosts your cookies is when they allow a business to come in, then give them a real estate tax break for 20 years.  At the end of 20 years, the company just moves on.  So, they take a tax paying property, convert it to a lower taxed property and guess who makes up the difference.

In the meantime, they put on a larger demand on the infrastructure.  Guess who pays for those repairs.

As far as elected officials, money talks. 

[farmerdoug]

We are a rural township with a power plant but we have had one instance already were someone asked for reduced taxes for building a foundry here.  Our township said if it is not profitable to build without a tax break then you do not need to build here.  We have seen the plants around in the area cities leave after the tax breaks ran out like Ron said.  We also saw plants leave to go to Arkansas to then Govern Clinton's minimum wage job creation plan that he was elected to the White House on also. 
That said a pet peave of mine is the people that complain about the elected people but do not even vote.

[Cedarman]

When we located our new mill in Al in 98 we did not consider looking for tax abatement. They offered it to us, we took it.We were locating where we did for other reasons and abatement was not one of them. My attitude is like farmerdoug's. If it takes abatement to get us there then it clouds our decision.  I think it is wrong for any community to offer it. It hurts established businesses and when the abatement is gone the business will run to the next place that offers incentives. Local people end up the losers in the long run. They just wasted their money on us because we wanted that location. Maybe some think it was wrong to take the money. We didn't ask for it, it was given.

[Larry]

Adding insult to injury.  After the land is stolen there is this new concept call tax increment financing (TIF).  Complicated scheme written by lawyers to benefit the rich and powerful.  Company submits a request for proposal to 50 cities fishing for the best deal.  Outright tax abatement, TIF, concessions from utilities, new infrastructure, along with all the other perks and sometimes these deals are pretty sweet.

Yeap, everybody wants a fishing super shop in their town...just how much ya willing to pay for it?

Sorta amazing to me when an government entity has a huge deferred maintenance debt but plenty of money for foop and frills.  Maybe I just don't understand things.