Posted on 10/23/2014 5:53:39 PM PDT by kindred
Indiana residents are fighting to save their homes as their local government weighs a sweeping plan to demolish them to make way for new development, in a case critics are calling a “poster child” for the abuse of so-called eminent domain powers. Charlestown, Ind., Mayor Bob Hall announced his plans earlier this year to demolish more than 350 homes in the city’s Pleasant Ridge neighborhood. The mayor contends the neighborhood is “blighted,” and therefore the city is eligible for state money to buy out the homeowners and tear down their houses. His office argues the houses, originally bought by the Army in 1940, were meant to be temporary. But the “temporary” houses remain very much occupied. And many residents are not interested in selling them, at least not for what the government might offer. According to the Institute for Justice, a national group that is aiding residents in their case, the state fund Hall wants to tap offers residents just $6,000 for their houses. “We’re not transients. We’re real people,” Ellen Keith, who has lived with her husband David in their Pleasant Ridge home for 36 years, told FoxNews.com. “These people are my real neighbors, and I love my neighbors. … My house is not for sale.” Hall first submitted a 17,000-page application for money from Indiana’s Blight Elimination Program in June of this year. The state’s decision was supposed to come out in July. But amid protests from residents, the mayor decided to put that decision on hold in early July, asking the state to defer the city’s application. Now residents will have to wait until November or December to find out if the city plans to go forward. The mayor’s office maintains that the destruction of these homes will be best for the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Creative suggestions indeed. I do think liberals often need to feel the same pain that they inflict on others to actually be able to put themselves in their shoes. For most of us with a conservative/Christian/Jewish upbringing thinking about how our decisions affect others is almost as natural as breathing for others without such upbringings it can an absolute alien concept - unless of course it wins votes!
E. Michael Jones wrote a book about that. It focused on how Philadelphia was targeted.
Many of us would just wish that all of “our” guberments would just leave us alone....
This 'hood is no 'rathole like Detroit/Newark/Camden/E. Stl.....
The mayor has an address. Just saying.
Welcome to America. This happened to me with the first house I bought. After a 2 year fight I won and kept my home. I pity the victims of modern eminent domain.
My response to eminent domain will always be the same as to Kelo. I published letters and wrote the developers warning that I would never under any circumstances shop at their mall on stolen land. Thugs may be able to bribe government into stealing, but we should make sure they never profit from that theft.
The only difference between these government entities and old-time horse thieves is the way we treat them - keep allowing this treatment by them and it will keep progressing - the courts are their accomplices.
You go a mile from this neighborhood in any direction, and there are nothing but farmers fields stretching to the horizon. Why do they have to do this development right here?
Good question. Because it’s not about the development. The development is just a way to get the money to buy out the homeowners. One reason all of this is happening is that we had two cities in our county and one in Scott county listed in the 10 most dangerous cities in Indiana. The thought is that we need to clean up our higher crime areas so the city can take advantage of the economic growth from River Ridge and the new Ohio River bridge. Otherwise new residents will choose to move either to the North or West.
The income tax was supposed to be temporary too, but nobody’s scrambling to do away with it.
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