City threatens to take land from 94-year-old farmer

How do you feel about eminent domain? Do you feel it is fair for this 94 year old man to be forced out of his life long home and the land that has been in his family for 120-140 years just to develop it to get more taxes? Should government have the right to do this?

http://www.oakcreeknow.com/news/94883639.html

The Viking, I don't like clicking on links. What exactly is proposed to be developed? Then I can answer the question.

Here is a part of the story.

Not for sale by choice
Adams says the family has no plans to sell the property. Her 64-year-old sister, like her uncle, lived there for nearly her entire life, and the plan has always been for Earl to hand the farm down to her.

Her sister has never had an outside job and even lost her arm in a farming accident. "She gave up her right arm for the farm," Adams said.

"The land is not for sale. It has never been for sale," she said.

"My uncle is 94 years old. Even if he gets a big payment for it, he's 94 years old. What good does the money do him? He doesn't want the money. He wants to keep the land. My sister wants to keep the land, and he wants to give it to her."

Taxpayer-first philosophy
City Attorney Lawrence Haskin said he sympathizes with Giefer and his family. The city is doing everything it can to work with Giefer and his attorneys, he said, to accommodate their concerns.

But city officials reason that developing the land could greatly increase Oak Creek's property tax base and, thus, keep residents' taxes low.

At a time when municipal governments are getting squeezed by the economic recession, escalating health care costs and mediation arbitration laws, cities everywhere are struggling to keep taxes down, Haskin said.

"I feel badly for him that he's been placed in this situation," he said. "We're trying to handle this with as much delicacy as possible …

"But the Common Council … represents everybody in this community. We're doing everything we can to hold the line on taxes, and one way to do that is through economic development."

So for whomever voted yes, would you be OK, if the Government came to you tomorrow and told you they were taking your home and land to let someone build condo's there to get more tax revenue, and there is nothing your could do about it?

It sounds as though the development is not based on a real need, like a hospital or something because there isn't one for miles. If it is just to build more houses that will end up in foreclosure and more strip centers that will end up empty, then this is a real shame that at 96 years of age he has to fight this battle. What is the world coming to? Furthermore, I find it disturbing that the government can take the land and then have a private investor develop it. It smells of corruption.

Silent Lucidity wrote: It sounds as though the development is not based on a real need, like a hospital or something because there isn't one for miles. If it is just to build more houses that will end up in foreclosure and more strip centers that will end up empty, then this is a real shame that at 96 years of age he has to fight this battle. What is the world coming to? Furthermore, I find it disturbing that the government can take the land and then have a private investor develop it. It smells of corruption.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court voted that the government can do that a few years ago. the 4 liberal judges and one Moderate voted for the government to be able to do that when then want to. Another reason the Supreme Court nominees are so important.

Here is one story as to what was passed.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsand ... inentd.htm

And this is why it is so dangerous to put liberals in the Supreme Court, and thus in the White House to appoint them.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/scotus.property/

Joining Stevens in the majority were justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Anthony Kennedy. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined O'Connor's dissent.

Here is the Liberal take on government in a nutshell.......

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long-accepted function of government," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

Stevens concluded that the city's plan "unquestionably serves a public purpose" and the majority appeared to defer to the judgment of local officials over the courts to navigate that standard.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue," he wrote.

And here is the Conservative view of government in this ruling.....


But writing for the dissenters, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the court overstepped its authority.

"The court today significantly expands the meaning of public use," O'Connor wrote. "It holds that the sovereign may take private property currently put to ordinary private use, and give it over for new, ordinary private use."

"With today's decision, no one's property is safe, since any time a government official thinks someone else can make better use of your property than you're doing, he can order it condemned and transferred," Roger Pilon, the group's director of constitutional studies, said in a written statement.

Amazing isn't it Viking. There are numerous examples in NYC of "holdouts" who wouldn't sell their land to such giants as Rockefeller for the Rockefeller Center, Macy's and others. They forced these giants of industry to build their skyscrapers around their homes because the eminent domain law wasn't applied then as it is now. Don't you think if that had been the intention that the people who owned the lots in these massive developments would have lost their property as it seems this 94 year old man will eventually lose his back in the days of the Great Depression when FDR and other progressives were the giants in the political arena?