Posted on 08/15/2007 3:16:06 PM PDT by UnsinkableMollyBrown
Edited on 08/15/2007 3:32:06 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Yesterday morning I found out that my home, along with more than 157 others in on the chopping block to make way for a major road. Imagine my dismay, when I found that the city in charge of the project has stated that the public comment time is over. I was never notified that there was any contemplation of such a project, and thus had no opportunity to voice my strenuous objection. Just wait, it gets much better...
I live on the border of two communities in Utah, American Fork and Highland. Highland wants a major, 3-5 lane, roadway to handle traffic from new communities. The road being used now is a sparsely populated, 50 mph roadway, which has some commercial development on its 10 mile span. Much of this road is a single lane in each direction, but the road is wide and the cost for expansion would be minimal. You can see it on google maps at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=W+11000+N+Highland,+UT,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title
My home is located on a residential, 25 mph, road. That is heavily traveled by pedestrians and bikers. Houses line the street, and at then West end of 9600 N, is a housing development. The road does not even go through to the freeway at the present time. By my count, from the golf course to the freeway would cause the destruction of approximately 157 homes, plus all the homes east of the golf course.
Now, here is the reason that I am outraged. Highland has chosen this road, expressly because it is on the community boarder. Part of the affected homeowners live in Highland, part in American Fork, and part in Lehi. They have effectively split the opposition, so that they do not have to listen to the chorus of opposition from both sides of the street, and the full length of the current road. Rather than deal with an organized opposition by a unified body, on the obvious choice for development, the cowards chose the most bizarre solution that would keep them from being raked over the coals.
I went to the American Fork Council meeting last night, and was appalled at the hands off, spineless, wimplike attitude of our elected leaders. The Mayor stated that "it is out of our jurisdiction." With my prepared speech in hand, I stormed up and told him that I am a resident of American Fork, and live on this road, and he does have jurisdiction. The meeting did not go well. It looks grim. Oh, and one more thing to make your blood boil, one of the Highland City Council Members lives on 9600 N. She is very much opposed to the plan, but she has been EXCLUDED from all the hearings on the matter. I am asking for your help.
Below is the statement that I read last night at the City Council meeting.
Highland's decision to use this road, was after their failure in appropriating 9850 N for this purpose. For the past 20 years, 9850 N was on Highland City's master plan as a 3 lane collector. The residents along this road, had a distinct advantage, because residents from both sides of the street were able to voice their vocal opposition. Today, I am expressing outrage that my voice is not being heard by the ultimate deciders of this ill-conceived plan. The Highland City Council, has expressly chosen a road on their border, in order to decrease the opposition of their plan, by effectively dividing the affected parties. We must not allow this plan to be implemented because of this attempted division. To address this matter ethically, the three councils, together, must meet to hear all the residents affected by this proposed roadway. Anything less will be a serious breach of government responsibility and an invitation to legal action. I ask that the American Fork City Council take action to stop this proposed roadway.
I am asking for your Freeper help, even though you don't live here because time is extremely short, and I need all the publicity and opposition that I can get.
Kelo was about using eminent domain to take property on behalf of people who would generate more tax revenue for the city than the current residential owners.
That is absolutely wrong.
If they are pulling a bait-and-switch, and are actually going to give your property to a commercial developer, that's one thing. If they really are going to build a road, that is quite another.
You may be able to delay it, but it’s legit use of the law........Best you can do is hold out for mo’ money............
Make sure you get what they appraise the value for.
“Make sure you get what they appraise the value for.”
No, don’t use their appraisal, get one of your own.
Mr Prosser said “You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.”
“Appropriate time?” hooted Arthur. “Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he’d come to clean the windows and he said no, he’d come to demolish the house. He didn’t tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.”
“But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”
“Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”
“But the plans were on display...”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
Always, but the county appraisal was higher than the private one.
They have the right to purchase your home when it comes to roads.
The admin deleted the email address of these government officials that I included in my post. I appreciate that their are privacy concerns for private citizens, however, being the official in charge of governing a group of citizens would appear to nullify that right.
I know that the city has the right. However, I am asking that you carefully read my post and look at the maps. I am telling you that the city is doing something unethical and illogical, and possibly corrupt and illegal due to the fact that they are eliminating the Councilwoman’s input and they haven’t notified all the homeowners along this road. If you don’t feel that you want to stand up against the corrupt government, whatever. I just hope someone cares enough to add their voice to mine that this is wrong.
The matter of one municipality using eminent domain to seize property in another municipality would involve a state law issue. You need to find out what the relevant state laws are in order to determine whether you have any realistic chance of stopping this.
Sounds like a noble, patriotic thing to do, give up your home for a needed road, doesn’t it? These corrupt municipalities have a way of doing their deeds because it benefits them personally (related to contractors, etc.) or just slip it by with no input (yeah, they probably published it, and NO one read it and they know it). The devil is always in the details and details are so darn bothersome!
What are your other neighbors affected by this saying?
Are there other homeowners as concerned as you? There is power in numbers and even if they are from different districts you need to organize them into an effective voice and see if you can get local media coverage.
When the road is completed will it go through to the freeway? Will any federal funds be used to construct the roadway? Does any of the proposed roadway go through parkland on which federal funds have been used? If yes, have all federal requirements for public notifications and hearings be met?
Have environmental impact assessments been made on the proposed roadway? Any endangered species? Any wetlands, streams, waterways to be crossed? If so, has proper documentation for government permits been submitted and approved?
Eminent domain is a proper function of government, but I am concerned about this construction being handled as you describe. It sounds like the governmental entities may be operating in the “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” mode.
Don't cut corners or pick somebody out of the yellow pages. Get a real live referral and make sure he's got no conflicts with the city.
The lawyer will know (1) if the city is up to something crooked; (2) if the city is on the up and up, how to get top dollar for your land. They will try to lowball you.
Good luck but I suspect you can bend over and kiss your home good bye. That is what eminent domain means, to use your property for a road. We had a similar situation here a few years ago. They didn’t take our home just 25 feet off the front of our property. Instead of living on a quiet dead end road we now live on a 4 lane thoroughfare and the traffic roars by here 24 hours a day. The value of our house dropped as did our taxes but they are back up now. Such is life in the big city. Be glad they are taking your house not just ruining it and letting you keep it.
I’d suggest going to an Indian reservation and buying large numbers of artifacts, busting and scraping them up to make them look ancient, and then distributing them to your neighbors. Surreptitiously, you bury these things in a scattered fashion in the affected neighborhood and in the surrounding area. You then call the leadership of the closets Indian tribe you can find and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the head of Native American Studies at the nearest and largest local university. Perhaps you can create a “sacred burial ground” situation which would delay but likely not prevent what you are facing.
I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but are you a lawyer by day?!
Is it now?
Well it ain’t in Alabama. We here dare defend our rights and the concept of Eminent Domain doesn’t mean that government can condemn your property for a public road or for the greater common good except by due process.
Rage against the special interest tyrants. They measure the world with their pocketbooks and they are less than fully human.
Since this will be a State/city debt you can request payment in gold or silver as stipulated under the U.S. Constitution:
Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1:
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
Since the legal tender value of a 1 ozt silver eagle is $1, or a 1 ozt gold eagle is $20 then they have to pay the legal tender value.
Or you can take payment in debt currency that has no defined value and loses it’s purchasing power on a daily basis, your choice.
Sorry to hear about this. Last year the brilliant minds in charge of the small town where I grew up decided to put sewer and water down that half mile stretch of rural route where the old homestead is located and in the process cut down and chipped up my great-grandfather’s walnut trees.
Alas, construction of the new road along a boundary is a common way to divee up expenses for a project from which more than one community will derive benefit. Get a lawyer; I wouldn’t recommend trying to get all your neighbors together to jointly hire counsel. But hey, I’m not in the legal profession.
The state is not "making" the legal tender, they're just using what Congress calls legal tender. Nice try.
Or you can take payment in debt currency that has no defined value and loses it’s purchasing power on a daily basis, your choice.
Because gold didn't fluctuate. Gold bugs are funny!
I was doing some more research on this proposal. The driving force behind this proposal is a semi government group called Mountainland Association of Governments. They have apparently been planning this for some time. They have just finalized a long range plan on my road, scheduled for construction between 2007 and 2015, so it appears that they already have Federal Funding. You can poke around their website at http://www.mountainland.org. And, get this, the Executive Council of MAG is made of Mayors from cities all over Utah county, and Mayors from Summit and Wasatch County. What, pray tell, are all these people, who have absolutely no vested interest, or accountability, deciding what to do with my road, in my town!!! I am mad. This has to be illegal. How can it not be? I didn’t elect these jokers, and they don’t represent me, and they certainly don’t have what’s best for this community in mind.
Oh, yeah, the chairmain of MAG just happens to be the Mayor of Highland city. Apparently, he and his American Fork cohort kept this plan under wraps and did not inform the city councils until this week.
Welcome to the NWO of the Globalists. Their agenda and accompanying corruption now reaches down from the federal level to the state and local levels.
BTTT
“No, don’t use their appraisal, get one of your own.”
And dont forget to add the cost of movers, lost time at work, closing costs on the new house and the new mortgage, related closing expenses, rebate on the unused portion of your real estate tax, time spent looking for a house, your house contract lawyer, your interior decorator on the new house, etc.
I’m not giving up yet. But, I appreciate your advice.
But the State can’t make payment of debts with any THING but gold or silver coin.
If you people started demanding payment for property grabs by States then soon it will stop.
Gold doesn’t fluctuate, the value of a federal reserve note fluctuates in it’s ability to purchase gold. Gold is payment in full. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold, no more no less, it doesn’t fluctuate.
A federal reserve note is a denomination of debt in garantee of payment at some future time in paper. It’s debasement by flooding the market in more paper, thus inducing inflation is legalized theft by stealing the purchasing power of a workers compensation for their time and labor.
You could try requesting they compensate you with land and a house of equal or greater value in another location.
Since they are requesting you give up your PROPERTY then you should have just compensation. Request payment in kind.
I like your idea. If I don’t win, maybe your plan could be implemented. I think they will have to justify this action, by unelected bureaucrats that don’t even live within 50 miles of me.
Wrong. The state can't make their own currency unless it is gold or silver.
If you people started demanding payment for property grabs by States then soon it will stop.
The state does pay. With good old FRNs.
Gold is payment in full. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold, no more no less, it doesn’t fluctuate.
Wow!
A federal reserve note is a denomination of debt in garantee of payment at some future time in paper.
Whose debt? Whose guarantee?
That’s a good idea. It worries me, because all the mortgage services have been effectively closed, because of the economic meltdown. I do think these cities are effectively relegating some of us to renterhood.
bump
Whose debt? Whose guarantee?
Your debt. Your guarantee that you will pay at some future date.
You request a loan from a bank. A bank pushes a few buttons and asks the Federal Reserve Banking system to create the paper debt for you to pay either the contractor or the realtor for the house/property. You then have a debt obilgation to pay this back.
When you don’t pay you get a credit crunch where there is a debt, but nobody willing to pay it. We are seeing that now in the housing market. People walk away from the debt because in reality that debt has no value. Created by the stroke of a pen it can be uncreated by the stroke of a pen.
You may laugh at Gold Bugs, but gold and silver have been MONEY for 5,000 years. They are the most liquid form of payment in the world. They are accepted everywhere as payment. Take a Federal Reserve Note to a rice farmer in Vietnam and a gold coin and see which he would prefer for payment for his product.
I saw both a Byzantine gold coin and a Roman silver coin for sale once. They still held value, and could still purchase the same amount of goods and services today that they could when they were minted. Can you say the same for Confedarate Currency or Sadam Husseins Dinars? Are either of them accepted around the world as a form of payment?
Welcome to the world of long-range planning! Almost every community in the United States is a part of one of these inter-governmental agencies. Here in the Kansas City region, it is MARC (Mid-America Council of Governments.
I was looking at the current Transportation Improvement Plan at the link you provided. Could you tell me what the name of the project is, it would help me figure out where your construction project actually is in the planning process.
Thanks, LSA
I promised to pay back the $20 bill in your pocket? I guaranteed it? That's funny!
You request a loan from a bank. A bank pushes a few buttons and asks the Federal Reserve Banking system to create the paper debt for you You then have a debt obilgation to pay this back.
The bank loans me money that others have deposited in the bank. The Federal Reserve doesn't "create" the money the bank loans me.
You then have a debt obilgation to pay this back.
Yes, the bank loans me money, I have an obligation.
You may laugh at Gold Bugs
Oh, I do.
but gold and silver have been MONEY for 5,000 years. They are the most liquid form of payment in the world. They are accepted everywhere as payment.
Everywhere? When is the last time you went to your neighborhood grocery store and paid with a $10 gold coin? LOL!
Take a Federal Reserve Note to a rice farmer in Vietnam
They'd love to take your FRN.
Check your PM.
Lol! Brilliant!
I don’t know if it will help, but I sent an email to Sean Hannity. Seems to me that he likes to defend folk’s home.
Sounds like you have even better cause what with this cabal of crooked mayors wheeling and dealing for themselves instead of their constituents. Maybe you can bring that whole thing down in the process. Collect all the info you can and when you see a lawyer ask him if that sounds like racketeering to him. RICO anyone?
Go find out just WHO owns the land where this “road” is going,,,This krap is done for personal gain most of the time
in my area,,,Follow The Money...
PS: Save anything you find on the net to your hard drive. If they get wind of growing opposition that info could become highly perishable.
I like the way you think! Yours is an easier solution because I was thinking of dinosaur bones. ;-D
Great information Daffy. I think that I am going to need it. Apparently the American Fork and Highland mayors have known about this deal for a few years. The real clincher is, why have they been approving new development on this road, that they knew was going to be destroyed. There are brand spanking new houses, up for sale, by the builders, right now. I am looking for some code in the affected cities. These mayors sound way dirty.
(sticking my nose in here for a minute) IMO, I think we, the average citizen, need to wake up to the catch-22 our government reps and the developers put us in.
Have you ever noticed how we're told that we need to have bigger, better roads to relieve the congestion only to find that once it's done they build more houses and/or businesses in that area? I have. I've seen it along the stretch of road I drive 5 days a week. They made the highway a three-lane, each way, to help alleviate the traffic. But, they are constantly building housing developments along the way. Add to that the number of traffic lights that are now needed, you find yourself back in the traffic jams and longer trip time to work.
Oh, then guess what? They want to raise your taxes to help pay for more roads or bypasses.....see the catch-22 here?
And, then you need to look at how your reps are related to the developers in your area. I've found that some of our commissioners are related in some form or friends with the big developer in our area. And, guess what else? They're building up another area heavy with traffic. And to top it off, they are determined to build up the area where I live cause it just has way too much land available and unused.
Molly B, seek out a law firm who specializes in eminent domain cases. There are laws against them just seizing your property. The liberals have bastardized the eminent domain law. It may have to eventually depend on you finding someone who can change the law. Our governor has been working on keeping that from happening to us in Maryland.
Sorry, but this is one of those things that piss me off along with how some of our states use the Lottery money. They are my soap-box!
I'll go now.
Could you please name the project so I can correlate it to the TIP document? Thanks, LSA
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