When was the last time you went to your local planning commission meeting or Board of Commissioners meeting? When was the last time you looked at your town's zoning map? I love it when people claim treason when they have no idea what is happening in their own towns. Properties are re-zoned all the time for the better good of the community. I can't wait until that makes N&D.

You think these people who are on boards make easy decisions. Try it. Run for your local Planning Commission. See what it takes.

I was at a Capital Committee meeting in May, but then again, I don't think Chapel Hill Town Council is corrupt, just unqualified and arrogant.

Oh c'mon. Do you mean to tell me that if the majority was Renquist, Thomas, Scalia, etc. people in this country wouldn't be yelling, "See, there you go! Another example of a runaway Supreme Court! This is why we need to filibuster nominations."

This happens to be about a fundamental difference of ideology between how far the government can intrude upon private rights. These are the same arguments made against the "right wing" of the government with the Patriot Act. What's the difference?

I think this sums up well why some of us are so outraged. In a perfect world Zut, yes, this would be used infrequently and as a last resort to save an ailing community. I don't buy it personally, but we'll just have to wait and see how local governments behave toward the ruling. This could result in a free-for-all for them.

Exactly. Just wait, this is could be a slippery slope.

I'd really like to see all the facts in this case. Is this a case of spot zoning? Or is it an old residential outparcel in the middle of a commercial zone? It would be interesting to see what the facts are.

Honestly, to me, the difference is that the Supreme Court is much more unpredictable than the legislative and executive branches. It seems to me that the SC still has its own brain at least, whereas the Republican-controlled Congress simply bows to the administration. Let's face it, we see a lot more bi-partisanship on the SC than we do in Congress.

You're preaching to the choir on this note. I'm just going by other peoples' perceptions which are greatly influenced by the crap we hear from both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate. The litmus tests that the forthcoming S. Ct. nominee is going to face is going to be ridiculous and is, ultimately, going to be dictated by party platform. I think it's absurd.

The facts of this particular case are trumped by the ramifications of this ruling. The ruling has given broad power to all cities to take land from people. The justices who voted for the city cited that the city in question had developed an economic plan that showed the benefit of this development to the community, including jobs and tax revenue. But if you think about it for a second, practically any business venture is going to create more jobs and tax revenue than someone's home, so property owners now have no recourse at all. Anyone that owns a home/property lost today. True, it may never happen to a lot of us, that doesn't make it right.

Well, it will probably all boil down to abortion anyway.

Should the local governments be able to buy your furniture and clothes (and at non negoitaible rate they determine) and then sell them to rich corporations (who make campaign contributions) if it will help the tax base?

I don't see any difference in this ruling.

Theft is theft.

One thing I do know is that people will defend their property with great passion. Like the one guy who lost said today, he's not going anywhere. They'll have to bulldoze the house with him inside.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/23/scotu ... index.html


This is just so so wrong.

So, you can spend years and years paying property taxes to the state, and at any given time if they decide they would, or the city would, like to make some profit on your land, they can come in, take your home, sell the land to a developer, the developer can build whatever housing or retail they choose, and then collect higher property taxes from the next tennant/owners?

So, what the F is the point of owning a house then? Does the local government doing the taking or the Supreme Court plan to give people their full financial equity when they take it? I doubt it.

Why not just rent, and keep the money you would spend on property taxes to yourself?

So we have to what, go complain to our Congress person to get Congress to pass some bill to counter this?

What is the checks&balances relative to the Supreme Court and such a ruling?


~sigh~

The only thing that could fix this would be congress passing a law and they won't do that unless it has "Anti-Terror" in it somewhere.

From South Park:

Kyle responds, "Isn't that fascism?"

Gerald replies, "No, because we don't call it fascism."

I think the place to start would be the local level. The ruling didn't give the federal government to do this, I don't believe. I'm sure community groups can band together and get local ordinances passed to counter this. Write your city council for starters.

I don't think it can extend this far. Eminent domain only extends to real property unless it is regulated. They can seize your personal property for other reasons, though (e.g., used in the commission of a crime).

Thats a result of budget mismanagement. If taxes need to be increased, increase them. If people can't afford to live there b/c of taxes, they'll move or have their house foreclosed by the city. Then the city can raze their houses and plop down a bunch of flippin' box stores to increase the tax base. Atleast that way it's just shady and not straight up THEFT.

Is another wal-mart serving the community?

Property rights are all we have. People deserve what ever money they wish to obtain if someone want's to purchase that property. The federal government has no role greater than to protect the property rights of it's citizens.

We aren't talking about proper use of eminent domain here, we're talking about handing land to developers in exchange for more property tax revenue. The poorer less politically powered people are the people getting screwed here.

Infrastructure is the last thing that money is spent on. Case in Point, Atlanta, Georgia. The city sewer system is 85 years old, with piss poor maintenance during that term because the idiots incharge didn't have the forsight or the integrity to do something about it, it was easier to sell expensive programs.

There is more than enough revenue coming from other places to serve schools, fire and police departments.

How about the government allocate our money better before they start taking peoples homes?

How about that?

How about less government altoegther?

None of these types of things ever lead to more local control or smaller government. What the supreme court has done is put the law in the hands of the developer instead of the hands of the property owner. Now if the wrong politician gets voted in you may lose your house. Oh you've been living there 30 years, too bad, this developer wants to build a 20 home community on your property and we'll increase tax revenues, get out.

I don't see how anyone could be for this ruling at all. It dosen't do the people of this nation any good. Unless of course you believe government actually has the peoples best interest at heart, then again I fail to see how evicting even one person for a developer is any better serving the community.

If the government gets to a point where they can't afford basic services like fire and police, they should do what any corporation must do. CUT! CUT! CUT!

How can a City council predict what tax bases they will receive each year? Budgets (ie expenses) are made the year before.

You are right of course, I was just trying to make an extreme analolgy to the situation.

In may cases (drugs esp.) they can seize your property if you are suspected of a crime. That's just as bad as eminent domain abuse.