Thread: Donald Trump's eminent domain love nearly cost a widow her house

Originally Posted by MW

You're so wrong on this issue, but for the benefit of the other forum readers, guess I'll let it go for now because we're just beating a dead horse issue. Oh, and Vera Coking most certainly was not the villain .... she was the private property owner that fought Trump's indirect attempt at acquiring her property through eminent domain and failed. Oh, but wait, everyone knows the Donald never fails (yeah, right).

Donald Trump didn't handle the eminent domain, the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority handled that. They failed, not Donald Trump. He walked away and bought another property for his hotel expansion. Vera Coking is the one who lost. Trump just moved on.

Yes, it's been a dead horse for 18 years.

Originally Posted by Judy

Donald Trump didn't handle the eminent domain, the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority handled that. They failed, not Donald Trump. He walked away and bought another property for his hotel expansion. Vera Coking is the one who lost. Trump just moved on.

Yes, it's been a dead horse for 18 years.

He didn't handle it because he had no standing or authority to do so. However, it was at his request that the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority did handle it. The goal was to take Coking's property through eminent domain and sell it to Trump. To deny Trump was an active participant in the whole scheme is just ludicrous.

Trump wanted the property and after making no headway with Coking, he went to the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority to get it for him through the eminent domain process. Therefore, make no mistake about it, this was Trump's failure as much as it was the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority's failure.

These actions would be defined as strong-arm bullying tactics.

The failure was by the lawyers who worked for the government who didn't go the New Jersey Supreme Court armed with the limits of use they needed to win the case. As you pointed out, Trump didn't have standing to handle that part of it, only incompetent government could mess up their own right of eminent domain.

Originally Posted by Judy

The failure was by the lawyers who worked for the government who didn't go the New Jersey Supreme Court armed with the limits of use they needed to win the case. As you pointed out, Trump didn't have standing to handle that part of it, only incompetent government could do that.

Wrong again. Trump failed in his ultimate goal of acquiring the property, regardless of whom he had working the issue for him.

Any time you're involved with government to do a project, you can bet something will get screwed up by some incompetent. It's why redevelopment of decrepit and blighted areas is so difficult and so rarely done in our country.

Take Flint Michigan for example. Jars and jars of rust-colored government water being hauled into government offices and government officials telling these poor people it's "safe" to drink.

Our country is in such a mess, it's just unbelievable.