Posted on 12/20/2006 6:59:54 PM PST by JTN
Developer Demanded $800,000 or Village Would Take Property; Property Owners Refused, Village Condemned Land Next Day
Arlington, Va—A federal court has now approved an extortion scheme using eminent domain under last year’s Kelo decision. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the rulings, developers may threaten property owners, “Your money or your land.”
Think this is an overstatement?
Consider what is happening right now in Port Chester, N.Y., to entrepreneur Bart Didden and his business partner, whose case will be considered for review by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 5, 2007.
With the blessing of officials from the Village of Port Chester, the Village’s chosen developer approached Didden and his partner with an offer they couldn’t refuse. Because Didden planned to build a CVS on his property—land the developer coveted for a Walgreens—the developer demanded $800,000 from Didden to make him “go away” or ordered Didden to give him an unearned 50 percent stake in the CVS development. If Didden refused, the developer would have the Village of Port Chester condemn the land for his private use. Didden rejected the bold-faced extortion. The very next day the Village of Port Chester condemned Didden’s property through eminent domain so it could hand it over to the developer who made the threat.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this extortion under last year’s Kelo eminent domain decision. The court ruled that because this is taking place in a “redevelopment zone” they couldn’t stop what the Village is doing.
“Essentially, the courts have ruled Kelo turns any redevelopment zone into a Constitution-free zone for property owners confronted by politically connected developers,” said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represents Didden and argued on behalf of the Kelo property owners. “We want the Supreme Court to rule that the Constitution does not permit governments or citizens acting on their behalf to demand money in exchange for allowing property owners to keep what is rightfully theirs. The very fact that we have to ask the highest court in the land for such a ruling underscores how precarious and threatening things are getting for ordinary American landowners.”
“My case is about extortion through the abuse of eminent domain; it is about payoffs and government run amok,” said Didden. “It took me years of hard work to buy that property, pay off my mortgages and really feel like I own it. How dare the Village of Port Chester and this developer threaten me in this way. I want to see integrity restored to the governmental process of exercising eminent domain. There is no integrity here. Unless the Supreme Court takes up my case, I fear for anyone else who owns a piece of property not just in Port Chester, but anywhere a politically connected developer is eyeing it.”
For now, the property remains vacant.
Didden expressed universal disappointment with the government officials who are charged with the duty of protecting his rights. “What really surprised me about this whole ordeal was the total lack of concern my situation earned from the Village politicians, to the County District Attorney’s office, all the way into the federal courts. A private citizen using the government’s power is extorting me. And the government that was supposed to protect my rights is nowhere to be found. If anything, it is making this extortion possible. It is an outrage.”
I hope you're right..America needs Americans,not US CITIZENS,,,there is a difference!
I'm as outraged, maybe more, as y'all.
But there's a couple of questions I wish the article had answered:
1. How much has the Village offered Didden for the land.
2. What's the name of the evil developer?
It's too late for this case, but y'all in Virginia need to get a state constitution amendment in place to stop this.
I'm sure glad we have something like this in South Carolina.
"We are now well beyond the level of tyranny that drove our forefathers to rebel against the colonial authority. Will the American people wake up, or simply shrug and watch more reality TV?"
Americans will never do what our forefathers did. "Rebellion against colonial authority" meant going out and murdering the police. That's what it meant then. That's what it would mean today. Americans will never do it again. The population has changed, and Americans have bought completely into the idea that if an elected government does it under the duly constituted laws of the land, that for anybody to break the law is wrong. Because there is now a very thick standing army in America (it is called the police force, but that's what standing armies WERE in the past; today we call it something different, and pretend that a standing army means the US Army, but NOT the police force, because the police are controlled by "state government" and "State's rights" is what America is all about.
Remember that Kelo was the ultimate state's rights decision. States have the right to take property, it said. It's not a federal constitutional issue, it said. So, it's up to the voters of the states.
Trouble is, American government at all levels is so large, and the populace so diffuse, that getting real democratic action moving in the case of an INDIVIDUAL outrage, like this case in Port Chester, is practically impossible.
So, the only real recourse would be the sort of rebellion you mentioned, what our forefathers did. The problem with that, of course, is that "rebellion" is a noble-sounding word, but what rebellion then and now really MEANS is shooting the cops, often by surprise, and killing the authorities who run government. That is what the American colonists DID: shot down soldiers from behind walls, etc. Would Americans really shoot down the cops today?
Or would they recall from such lawlessness as "terrorism"?
The latter.
America will never rebel again. There won't even be mass movements like the ones in Europe. Americans really disdain European mass protests for their "lawlessness". I note that when the French go into the streets, the government actually caves in. Americans consider this an inferior form of government. Of course, land takings like this one in Port Chester, or the ones in Connecticut, do not happen in France, not like that. The law is very clear there, and the people have a nasty habit of rebelling over there when government does something that pisses them off.
Americans like to think that we are superior to those anarchic frogs, et al. But the truth is that Americans simply idolize the whole concept of law. That's it, at the end of the day. The courts will rule, and whatever they rule, Americans will do. If the Second Amendment is pared away, all these folks who talk about the 2nd Amendment being "The reset button of the Constitution" will not, in fact, press that button.
The frog's already been boiled here. Anglo Saxons will never rebel again. Instead, they will continue to be the dying race that we are - not reproducing at replacement rate, and being replaced in the land by more fertile people.
I'm not writing to be upsetting. I am telling you the truth. Americans will not "rebel", because rebellion MEANS murder. It means murdering police officers and government officials. Americans will never do that again. They respect the law too much. That game is over here, at least among Anglo-Saxons. Latinos are a different kettle of fish, of course, but we will have to wait and see what they do as the dominant majority running America in the future. Whites are never going to do anything other than slowly boil in the pot and gradually diminish in numbers.
It's said, but that is how great civilizations die: from within.
"Kelo, a travesty of the pinciples of our Constitution !!!"
No.
Kelo: the undiluted victory of states' rights.
There is no federal power that limits states' rights to set eminent domain law.
Surprised? Please.... Welcome to America 2006.
Sadly, you are probably correct.
Organizing effectively, however, could be problematic what with the Patriot Act and all.... Plus, there's a much larger, fat and lazy 'Caligula' syndrome going on in America these days than could ever have been imagined in the 18th century.
Only the taxing government authority owns "your" property.
Get used to it, or get the barricades set up. Those are the only real choices.
Kelo is nothing more then governments power play to confiscate private property for one reason and one reason only,and that reason is taxes. If you believe there is anything Constitutional about Kelo that's your opinion not mine, and the repercussions of Kelo are being felt all over the country where state and local governments are confiscating land previously owned, in some cases for decades for this crack whore reason !!!
Port Chester, New York has been a mob town for many years.
bump
Yes -
Lots got "bumped" by "connected" residents of Port Chester, NY
The degree of tyranny our forefathers rebelled against would have been considered normal order of business as far back as the civil war--on both sides....
what we're facing now is Soviet style seizures of property--only now its private developers who are benefiting..
or in the cement foundations of large construction projects (likely where Hoffa is)....
Just another pull peddler realizing his own power.
Triple sigma for the extortionist.
Something too many lawyers and people in government have forgotten.
The only way to trump a SCOTUS decision is to pass an amendment. That was the cure for the Dred Scott decision, and I think it's time for an eminent domain amendment. Property rights deserve more than one brief clause.
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