Eight Years Later, the Kelo Eminent-Domain Lawsuit Site Is Still Barren, As Is ...
National Press Coverage
By Tom Blumer June 24, 2013
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/06/24/eight-years-later-kelo-eminent-domain-lawsuit-site-still-barren-national
How ironic
it is that, as Kyle Drennen noted today
at NewsBusters, that NBC's David Gregory was so vocal
in advocating that "Government Playing a Bigger Role" in the economy,
given that yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the Kelo vs. New
London decision, a monument to colossal government failure if
there ever was one.
A 5-4
Supreme Court majority, believing that the Connecticut city of New London had
"carefully formulated a development plan ... (with) appreciable benefits
to the community," violated the plain language of the
"public use" clause of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment
which was clearly designed to limit government eminent-domain takings to true
public projects (e.g., roads, bridges, etc.). They instead decided that
"public use" really means "public purpose" (i.e., anything
the government wants to do, including condemning property so that it can be
transferred from current to new owners in the name of some higher good).
Eight years
later, "Government Playing a Bigger Role" in the city's Fort Trumbull
area has, as the New London Day's Kathleen Edgcomb
reports in a commendable thorough treatment which should be
read in full, led to ... nothing. Oh, and current proposals include, well,
you'll just have to read it to believe it (bolds are mine):
'It still hurts': Fight to save home scars
one Fort Trumbull family
Three
generations of Michael Cristofaro's family have at
one time or another lived in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, so getting beyond the hurt of
losing the family home to eminent domain has not been easy.
... These
days, when he returns to Fort Trumbull, the 70-plus acre peninsula on the Thames River
that was leveled by the city for redevelopment, he's more sad than angry.
"We
weren't good enough?" Cristofaro asked on a warm
June afternoon as he stood near a field of tall grasses and wildflowers where
his house and others once stood.
... In
the late 1990s, with around $80 million from the state, the city began
a redevelopment project that included razing the worn-down neighborhood of
single- and multi-family homes along with the bones of an abandoned federal
research center at Fort
Trumbull. Many home
owners sold their land and moved on. Some properties were taken by eminent
domain.
A hotel, restaurant, conference center,
athletic center, bioscience office park and new housing were supposed to be
built next to a new $300 million Pfizer Inc. office building. But eight years
after the landmark Supreme Court decision, which expanded the parameters of
eminent domain to include the taking of private property for future economic
development, there is still no new construction in Fort Trumbull.
... The
Italian Dramatic Club, a one-story pink stucco building that was saved from
demolition, also is still there.
... Since
the decision, 42 states have enacted legislation or passed ballot measures that
limit the way eminent domain can be used, according to the National Conference
of State Legislatures.
... The
Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm that took on the Kelo case pro bono, said more than 16,000 homes and
businesses have been saved since the Supreme Court
decision.
... The
mayor wants the land that was taken by eminent domain to be set aside and used
only for public projects. Possibilities include a desalinization plant,
a wind farm and a solar field. A municipal parking garage with ground-floor
retail is also a possibility, he said.
Really, the Kelo area may turn into yet another green
boondoggle. You can't make this up.
Almost no
one outside the immediate New London
area knows that nothing has been done in the subject area since the decision.
Even fewer
know that Kelo was also a particularly
egregious example of cronyism and political favoritism. The Italian Dramatic
Club to which Edgecomb referred is, as I noted in early 2009, "a private social
club for well-connected political elites in the surrounding area." It was
spared because, according to its lawyer, "aspects of the city’s heritage
have to remain sacrosanct." Today, "every building on the 90-acre (Kelo) site is gone, except for a relatively new
office building at 1 Chelsea St.
and the IDC."
Incredibly,
Mr. Cristofaro's house was right next door to the
Italian Dramatic Club.
Edgecomb also noted that Cristofaro
had another home taken "so the city could build a seawall. The street is
gone now and the seawall never was built."
For eight
years, the national establishment press has shown almost no interest in
covering what has actually happened with the property involved in the arguably
most important and negatively consequential land-use case ever decided by the
Supreme Court, whose five majority members really need to be asked what they
think of the City's "carefully formulated a development plan" today.
It's hard
not to believe that the lack of coverage has more than a little to do with not
bursting anyone's bubble about the wonderful things ever more powerful
governments can do, and not exposing the blatant cronyism which should have
been sufficient cause for the Supremes to laugh the City's case out of the
courtroom.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/06/24/eight-years-later-kelo-eminent-domain-lawsuit-site-still-barren-national