Factchecker: Donald Trump supports eminent domain

Factchecker: Donald Trump supports eminent domain

http://www.thegazette.com/storyimage...W=995&MaxH=500

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a news conference to reveal his tax policy at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York September 28, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

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OCTOBER 3, 2015 | 11:59 AM

Introduction

“The Supreme Court Kelo decision gave government massive new power to take private property and give it to corporations. Conservatives have fought this disaster. What’s Donald Trump say? ‘I happen to agree with it 100 percent.’ Trump supports eminent domain abuse because he can make millions while we lose our property rights.”

Source of claim

Television ad from the Right to Rise PAC now airing in Iowa

Analysis

The PAC supporting Republican Jeb Bush for president isn’t the first group to accuse GOP front-runner Donald Trump supporting eminent domain. Such supporters argue Trump’s record should preclude him from receiving the GOP’s nomination for president.

We’re checking whether Trump indeed supports the practice of forcing the sale of private property for private redevelopment.

As the ad states, conservatives tend to disagree with the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed New London, Conn., to force the sale of private homes for a private redevelopment project.

Under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, the government can take private property for public use if it provides fair compensation to the land owners. But in the Kelo decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 2005 that private redevelopment could qualify as a “public use” if the public would benefit from the planned project.

In 2005, Trump agreed with the high court’s decision, telling Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto: “I happen to agree with it 100 percent, not that I would want to use it,” theNational Review reported in 2011.

Trump elaborated:

“The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place — now, I know it might not be their choice — but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.”

Before the Kelo decision, Trump tried to use eminent domain to his advantage in the mid-90s for a private project.

One example, often used when Trump and eminent domain are the topic of conversation, occurred in 1997 when he tried to use eminent domain to seize the home of Vera Coking, along with two nearby businesses, to build a limousine parking lot for a hotel in Atlantic City.

Trump sought the assistance of a government agency, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, to take her property. The agency offered her $250,000 for the property. When she turned down that offer, the CRDA went to court to claim her property under eminent domain. Though the case took several years, she won.

Conclusion

Given Trump’s previous comments following the Kelo decision about supporting the ruling, we give Bush’s PAC, Right to Rise, an A for claims that he supports eminent domain. Although Trump tried — and failed — to use the Kelo decision for his benefit in the 1997 limo park case, his reasons for supporting eminent domain can’t be verified.

Criteria

The Fact Checker team checks statements made by an Iowa political candidate/office holder or a national candidate/office holder about Iowa, or in advertisements that appear in our market. Claims must be independently verifiable. We give statements grades from A to F based on accuracy and context.
If you spot a claim you think needs checking, email us at factchecker@thegazette.com.

This Fact Checker was researched and written by Jessie Hellmann.

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/ne...omain-20151003

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Vera Coking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vera Coking is a retired homeowner in Atlantic City, New Jersey whose home was the focus of a prominent eminent domain case involving Donald Trump.

Coking house at 127 S Columbia Pl, between the steel framework of the planned Penthouse Casino; photographed by Jack Boucher for Historic American Buildings Survey, c.1991

In 1961, Vera and her husband bought the property at 127 South Columbia Place as a summertime retreat for $20,000.[1] In 1993, when Donald Trump sought to expand his property holdings around his Atlantic City casino and hotel (to build a parking lot designed for limousines), he bought several lots adjacent to his property.[2] Coking, who had lived in her house at that time for about 35 years, refused to sell. This was not the first time Coking had been asked to sell her property for development. When Coking refused to sell to Trump, the city of Atlantic City condemned her house, using the power of eminent domain. Her designated compensation was to be $251,000,[3] about one quarter of what it had been valued 10 years earlier.

With the assistance of the Institute for Justice, Coking fought the local authorities, and eventually prevailed.[4] Superior Court Judge Richard Williams ruled that, because there were "no limits" on what Trump could do with the property, the plan to take Coking's property did not meet the test of law. But Williams' ruling did not reject the practice of using eminent domain to take private property from one individual and transferring it to another, which would eventually be upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Kelo v. City of New London.

Trump was not the only one to pursue Coking's property. In the 1970s, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione had offered Coking $1 million for her property, which she declined, in order to build the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. Guccione started construction of the hotel-casino in 1978 around the Coking house, but ran out of money in 1980 and construction stopped. The steel framework structure was finally torn down in 1993.[5] At one point it was considered the most coveted home in Atlantic City for its value to developers.[1] Two other properties that prevailed against eminent domain eventually did sell: Sabatini's restaurant receiving $2.1 million and a pawnshop for $1.6 million; both became part of a large lawn flanking a taxi stand for the casino.[1][6]

Coking moved out in 2010 and to a retirement home in the San Francisco Bay Area near her grandson, Ed Casey. Since then Casey has tried to sell the house; putting it on the market in 2011 with an asking price of $5 million.[1][7] As of September 2013 the price was reduced to $995,000.00 [8] The property did not sell as Atlantic City continued to suffer the lingering effects of the financial crisis of 2007–08 and over-building during the boom that preceded it.

Coking's property was sold for $530,000 in an auction on July 31, 2014.[9] The reserve price was $199,000, a tenth of the offer Trump had made for the property eight years earlier.[1] Neither the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority nor the owners of Trump Plaza expressed any interest in the auction.[1] The buyer turned out to be Carl Icahn, who held the debt on Trump Entertainment, owner of the Trump Plaza. He subsequently demolished the Coking house.[10] The adjacent Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, the property for which Trump wanted Coking's property to begin with, closed on September 16, 2014 due to lack of business.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Coking

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

Donald Trump’s history of eminent domain abuse
By Ilya Somin August 19

David Boaz of the Cato Institute has an excellent article summarizing Donald Trump’s shameful history of promoting eminent domain abuse for the purpose of seizing property from homeowners and businesses who refuse to sell to him:

For more than 30 years Vera Coking lived in a three-story house just off the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Donald Trump built his 22-story Trump Plaza next door. In the mid-1990s Trump wanted to build a limousine parking lot for the hotel, so he bought several nearby properties. But three owners, including the by then elderly and widowed Ms Coking, refused to sell.As his daughter Ivanka said in introducing him at his campaign announcement, Donald Trump doesn’t take no for an answer.Trump turned to a government agency – the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) – to take Coking’s property….Peter Banin and his brother owned another building on the block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a pawn shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin said: “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”

Ultimately, as Boaz notes, Trump and the CRDA lost in court in CRDA v. Banin, an early victory for the Institute for Justice – the public interest law firm that later litigated Kelo v. City of New London and other landmark property rights cases.

As Boaz notes, this was not the only time that Trump sought to use eminent domain to seize property from unwilling owners. In 1994, he also lobbied the city of Bridgeport to condemn five small businesses so he could build an office and entertainment complex that he absurdly claimed would turn Bridgeport into a “national tourist destination.”

On this issue, unlike most others, Trump has been consistent over time. When the Supreme Court narrowly upheld “economic development” takings that transfer property to private parties in the 2005 Kelo case, the ruling was widely denounced on both left and right. But Trump defended it stating that “I happen to agree with it 100%. if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and … government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and … create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.” The feral cats who currently occupy the condemned land probably agree. Trump did not merely claim that the decision was legally correct; he argued that it was “good” to give government the power to forcibly displace homeowners and small businesses and transfer their property to influential developers on the theory that doing so might promote “economic development.”

Both the Kelo case and Trump’s efforts to benefit from eminent domain exemplify a longstanding pattern under which that power is used to take land away from the political weak and transfer it to influential private interests. In the long run, as cities like Detroit have learned, such assaults on property rights undermine development far more than they promote it.

UPDATE: It’s worth noting that, on this issue, Trump has demonstrated even less respect for property rights than fellow presidential candidate and self-proclaimed socialist Bernard Sanders. When the Kelo decision was issued, Sanders spoke out against it, noting “the result of this decision will be that working families and poor people will see their property turned over to corporate interests and wealthy developers.” I discuss the widespread opposition to Kelo more fully in my recent book on the case and its aftermath.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...minent-domain/

If this forum wastes time, while one immigration schemes AFTER ANOTHER, is hatched from the depths of who knows where, maybe I should just drop out of it? This is not supposed to be a place to vent Party infighting., and miscellaneous conspiracy theories, alien encounters (the outer space kind), political hero worship.....

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Originally Posted by artist

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

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That's right. It's very hard to re-develop these blighted, decrepit areas on your own. And even with eminent domain it can be very difficult because as in the Coking case, the property owner can win. Eminent domain is not a sure thing and it takes a long time. Most good developers want to be able to do it privately but sometimes it can't be done. It's why our cities have such a hard time with re-development of blighted areas. If they use eminent domain, they're attacked as evil people stepping on people's property rights, if they don't, they can't do or finish the project. Sometimes, these properties are key to the success or failure of the whole development. I can tell you this also, it's far better to make a private deal with the developer, you'll make a great deal more money with them, than with eminent domain. When you're paying property taxes on a $250,000 home, but want $5 million for it, and the developer will only offer you $2 million, if eminent domain comes into play, rest assured the city or county is only going to pay you what's on their tax books.

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Originally Posted by Captainron

If this forum wastes time, while one immigration schemes AFTER ANOTHER, is hatched from the depths of who knows where, maybe I should just drop out of it? This is not supposed to be a place to vent Party infighting., and miscellaneous conspiracy theories, alien encounters (the outer space kind), political hero worship.....

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I'm sorry you don't see this stuff as important. There are those of us that take the vetting process very seriously. Knowing the good and bad of a candidate is part of the process necessary for making a wise and educated choice come election time. Federal, state, or local ......I want to gather all the information I can to minimize the chance of regret later.

Eminent domain is in the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court in the Kelo Decision has ruled that state and local governments can take a property for an economic development project that generates new tax revenues in accordance with their own laws and state Constitutions. Raising this issue is not vetting, it's disputing settled constitutional law. States have the right to restrict themselves through their own laws or Constitutional provisions to prevent their state and local governments from doing this. So it's a state issue, not a federal issue, and has nothing to do with the Office of the Presidency of the United States. It never did, the Kelo decision is about the rights of states and local governments to take property rights from one and transfer them to another for a public purpose or benefit. If you don't want that in your state, then pass a law or amend your Constitution, whichever is needed to prevent it.

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Originally Posted by artist

The cities, states & federal gov't pull eminent domain too - it is a law of the land. The states have displaced peoples for highways etc. - a developer can pull eminent domain if a large majority of an area is derelict - better to rejuvenate than stagnate. Let us remember the roots of Mr Trump and his family's business - should he not know the rules of the land? Paleeze - he is a businessman! I do not find that unscrupulous but i do find our gov't's dealing as such because they ignore our immigration laws.

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There are many cases where property is taken that has absolutely nothing to do with the property being blighted. How would you speak to those folks? How would you feel if you had a 230 acre farm that had been in your family for 150 years and out of the blue local government decided they had a better use for it and used eminent domain to take it from you and your family? Do you honestly think that is right?

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Originally Posted by MW

There are many cases where property is taken that has absolutely nothing to do with the property being blighted. How would you speak to those folks? How would you feel if you had a 230 acre farm that had been in your family for 150 years and out of the blue local government decided they had a better use for it and used eminent domain to take it from you and your family? Do you honestly think that is right?

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Then take the issue up with the local government that's doing it! What does that have to do with the race for President of the United States??!!!

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Originally Posted by Judy

Eminent domain is in the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court in the Kelo Decision has ruled that state and local governments can take a property for an economic development project that generates new tax revenues in accordance with their own laws and state Constitutions. Raising this issue is not vetting, it's disputing settled constitutional law. States have the right to restrict themselves through their own laws or Constitutional provisions to prevent their state and local governments from doing this. So it's a state issue, not a federal issue, and has nothing to do with the Office of the Presidency of the United States. It never did, the Kelo decision is about the rights of states and local governments to take property rights from one and transfer them to another for a public purpose or benefit. If you don't want that in your state, then pass a law or amend your Constitution, whichever is needed to prevent it.

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I'm sorry, many people wouldn't agree with you, nor would they agree that eminent domain laws are just and proper! As for Trump attempting to utilize eminent domain for his financial benefit, I would say that says something about his character, which does have something to do with being a suitable presidential candidate.

Are we now at a point in this country that we no longer feel the character of an individual is important in determining the suitability of a politician who is elected to represent us? Ascertaining the character of a person is part of the vetting process, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by MW

I'm sorry, many people wouldn't agree with you, nor would they agree that eminent domain laws are just and proper! As for Trump attempting to utilize eminent domain for his financial benefit, I would say that says something about his character, which does have something to do with being a suitable presidential candidate.

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Then join them and support someone else that you think has a higher character. Your article seems to like Bernie Sanders. He's very popular right now. Maybe he's your man. Whoever it is, I'm sure we all support your struggle to find a candidate you can vote for and not regret later.

Excerpt:

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No one doubts that eminent domain is necessary for a government to build necessary roads, bridges and tunnels. Eminent domain is abused when it helps a private developer acquire cheap land to build a sports stadium, or a shopping mall, or to help a university expand. The flawed theory is that there is a “public benefit” in taking land from the politically weak and giving it to the politically strong, because they’re naturally better citizens. It goes against the basic American principles of life, liberty and property.

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http://www.redstate.com/diary/barryp...veloper-is-ok/

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Originally Posted by Captainron

If this forum wastes time, while one immigration schemes AFTER ANOTHER, is hatched from the depths of who knows where, maybe I should just drop out of it? This is not supposed to be a place to vent Party infighting., and miscellaneous conspiracy theories, alien encounters (the outer space kind), political hero worship.....

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Forum: General Discussion
http://www.alipac.us/9-general-discussion.html/

Discuss the issues of illegal immigration, congress, the President, campaigns, legal immigration, security, laws, gangs, border patrol, and homeland security here.

Forum: News Stories from ALIPAC Members http://www.alipac.us/12-news-stories...-members.html/

Members of ALIPAC can post their own news stories here. Articles must be on the topics of illegal immigration, aliens, gangs, laws, campaigns, legal immigration, terrorists, Americans, border patrol, and security.


Forum: Other Topics News and Issues http://www.alipac.us/19-other-topics-news-issues.html/

For discussions and news that are not on the topic of illegal immigration and immigration.

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Originally Posted by Judy

Then join them and support someone else that you think has a higher character. Your article seems to like Bernie Sanders. He's very popular right now. Maybe he's your man. Whoever it is, I'm sure we all support your struggle to find a candidate you can vote for and not regret later.

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Please do not patronize me. I've already made it very clear that I will vote for Trump. Excuse me for not gushing all over him constantly the way you have chosen to do. Trump is a man just like any other. He has his strong points and his flaws. He is not perfect and I find it a little demeaning that you routinely call me out for bringing up his flaws.

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Originally Posted by MW

I'm sorry, many people wouldn't agree with you, nor would they agree that eminent domain laws are just and proper! As for Trump attempting to utilize eminent domain for his financial benefit, I would say that says something about his character, which does have something to do with being a suitable presidential candidate.

Are we now at a point in this country that we no longer feel the character of an individual is important in determining the suitability of a politician who is elected to represent us? Ascertaining the character of a person is part of the vetting process, isn't it?

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Absolutely, character is a crucial issue of selecting our candidates. It's what kind of character do you want? Do you want the "character" that leaves run-down cities and blighted areas run-down and blighted with no jobs, no money, no nice buildings or housing for people to live and work in where thieves, murderers, rapists, gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers are the city council? Or do you want the "character" of someone who spends their time trying to fix an area, to improve it, to create jobs, to make it clean, safe, nice and appealing for people to work and live in and visit and spend money and by doing so runs the thieves, murderers, rapists, gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers out of town?

It depends on your end game, what "character" you want in public office. Someone who fixes decrepit blighted areas or someone who continues to ignore them. And when it's local government doing these things, the "characters" you need to be vetting are state and local government politicians, not ones running for President of the United States.

There are far more properties "taken" by state and local governments for delinquent income and property taxes than eminent domain. I suppose you're fine with that, right? Government gets those without any compensation at all.

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Originally Posted by Captainron

If this forum wastes time, . . . maybe I should just drop out of it? . . .

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The stuff that you aren't interested in only waste YOUR time if you read it.
Do what I do.
Skip over most comments or articles that have certain peoples names on them.
Or only read the first sentence
and then shut out the rest of it if it doesn't interest you.
Stick around and have a good laugh.

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Originally Posted by Judy

Absolutely, character is a crucial issue of selecting our candidates. It's what kind of character do you want? Do you want the "character" that leaves run-down cities and blighted areas run-down and blighted with no jobs, no money, no nice buildings or housing for people to live and work in where thieves, murderers, rapists, gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers are the city council? Or do you want the "character" of someone who spends their time trying to fix an area, to improve it, to create jobs, to make it clean, safe, nice and appealing for people to work and live in and visit and spend money and by doing so runs the thieves, murderers, rapists, gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers out of town?

It depends on your end game, what "character" you want in public office. Someone who fixes decrepit blighted areas or someone who continues to ignore them. And when it's local government doing these things, the "characters" you need to be vetting are state and local government politicians, not ones running for President of the United States.

There are far more properties "taken" by state and local governments for delinquent income and property taxes than eminent domain. I suppose you're fine with that, right? Government gets those without any compensation at all.

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Nice try at attempting to direct the argument in a way to seem favorable to those who support eminent domain. Truth be know, there are people like you and I that lose their property all the time to eminent domain and it's not because it's blighted or taxes are owed on it.

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Originally Posted by MW

Nice try at attempting to direct the argument in a way to seem favorable to those who support eminent domain. Truth be know, there are people like you and I that lose their property all the time to eminent domain and it's not because it's blighted or taxes are owed on it.

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Really? Could you name one?

I can name one and probably several more. Just google "eminent domain abuse" and you will get pages.

From the Boston Globe:

Eminent disaster

Homeowners in Connecticut town were dispossessed for nothing
https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Bos...ped_jacoby.jpg

GETTY IMAGES

A 2005 photo shows Susette Kelo’s house near foundations from recently destroyed homes. Kelo’s home was eventually relocated.

By Jeff Jacoby GLOBE COLUMNIST MARCH 12, 2014

NEARLY NINE years have elapsed since the US Supreme Court, in one of its most notorious rulings, decided that seven homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, Conn., had no property rights which City Hall was bound to respect. Today Fort Trumbull is a wasteland, as a detailed new report confirms.

The court’s 5-4 holding in Kelo v. City of New London gave local officials a green light to seize and demolish private homes through eminent domain, then turn the land over to developers itching to build something more lucrative. In Fort Trumbull, those private homeowners included people such as Susette Kelo, a local nurse who bought her little Victorian cottage on the Thames River because she loved its waterfront view; Wilhelmina Dery, who was born in her house on Walbach Street in 1918 and had been living there all her life; and Pasquale and Margherita Cristofaro, whose home on Goshen Street was the second New London property they lost to eminent domain, the first having been taken 30 years earlier because the city intended to construct a seawall. (The seawall was never built.)

Their homes, like those of their neighbors, were targeted by Pfizer. The pharmaceutical giant was building a major research facility nearby and wanted city officials to pave the way for a “world-class redevelopment” that would appeal to the business leaders, scientists, and other professionals the new headquarters was expected to attract. “Pfizer wants a nice place to operate,” a supercilious executive said in 2001. “We don’t want to be surrounded by tenements.”

The Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause” authorizes eminent-domain takings, but only when property is needed “for public use” — for example, to build a post office or widen a road. Fort Trumbull’s homeowners argued all the way up to the Supreme Court that their homes weren’t being seized for “public use” but for private use. Under the Constitution, they insisted, the city had no right to forcibly transfer their property to a private developer in the hope that new development would yield higher tax revenues or new jobs.

But five justices — John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy — decided otherwise. With their imprimatur, New London confiscated the modest but well-cared-for homes of Fort Trumbull. The last remaining owners were forced out. The bulldozers moved in. The land was cleared for the kind of upscale redevelopment that Pfizer and its political allies in New London craved: a posh hotel, a conference center, a condominium complex, a health club, and high-end shops.

And how did it all end up?

When journalist Charlotte Allen went recently to New London to find out, what she found, as she reported in The Weekly Standard, was “a vast, empty field — 90 acres — that was entirely uninhabited and looked as though it had always been that way.” There is no hotel, no health club, no condos. The neighborhood that for generations had been home to working-class families like the Derys and Cristofaros is now a “deserted incline,” where the only signs of life are “waist-high dead weeds.”
The homeowners were dispossessed for nothing. Fort Trumbull was never redeveloped. Pfizer itself bailed out of New London in 2009. The Kelo decision was a disaster, as even the city’s present political leaders acknowledge. Allen writes that the current mayor, who was elected in 2011, has formally apologized to the Kelo plaintiffs, calling the decision a “black stain” on New London’s reputation. City officials agreed to install a plaque on the heights above the Thames in memory of Margherita Cristofaro, who died during the long legal battle. It notes that she and her family “made significant contributions to the Italian-American community, sacrificing two family homes to the eminent domain process.”

If anything good came of Kelo, it was the furious nationwide backlash, which led a number of states — Massachusetts, unfortunately, not among them — to pass new laws protecting property owners from abusive eminent-domain takings. But such still happens, and will go on happening until Kelo is overruled.

The founders put the takings clause in the Bill of Rights for a reason. The desolation that is Fort Trumbull is a grim reminder that where property rights aren’t secure, neither is freedom — and without freedom, there is nothing the government can’t destroy.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/...h0L/story.html

I personally find this disturbing because in many cases the owners don't get "a lot of money" they get what the government says that they should have. No candidate will hit all of the issues in way that everyone agrees with. I agree with Trump on illegal immigration and trade which are both big items to me.
TRUMP: EMINENT DOMAIN, EVEN FOR PRIVATE PROJECTS IS ‘WONDERFUL THING,’ ‘YOU’RE NOT TAKING PROPERTY’

by IAN HANCHETT6 Oct 2015780

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump argued that eminent domain, including for private projects that “employ thousands of people” is “a wonderful thing” in an interview broadcast on Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.

Trump stated, “I think eminent domain is wonderful, if you’re building a highway, and you need to build, as an example, a highway, and you’re going to be blocked by a hold-out, or, in some cases, it’s a hold-out, just so you understand, nobody knows this better than I do, because I built a lot of buildings in Manhattan, and you’ll have 12 sites and you’ll get 11 and you’ll have the one hold-out and you end up building around them and everything else, okay? So, I know it better than anybody. I think eminent domain for massive projects, for instance, you’re going to create thousands of jobs, and you have somebody that’s in the way, and you pay that person far more — don’t forget, eminent domain, they get a lot of money, and you need a house in a certain location, because you’re going to build this massive development that’s going to employ thousands of people, or you’re going to build a factory, that without this little house, you can’t build the factory. I think eminent domain is fine.”

Trump was then asked for his past support for the Supreme Court’s ruling on eminent domain in Kelo v. New London, he stated, “Eminent domain — number one, a person has a house, and they end up getting much more than the house is ever worth. You know, eminent domain is not like you — they take your house.”

He added, “if you have a road or highway, you gotta do it. If you have a factory where you have thousands of jobs, and you need eminent domain, it’s called economic development.”

When asked about criticism of the Kelo ruling by Democratic presidential candidate Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) , Trump argued, “the way they talk, people would say oh, it’s turned over. It’s turned over for four, five, six, ten times sometimes what it’s worth. People pay them a fortune. But sometimes you have people that want to hold out just for the — most of the time, I will say, I’ve done a lot of outparcels, I call them outparcels. Most of the time, they just want money, okay? It’s very rarely that they say ‘I love my house. I love my house. It’s the greatest thing there.’ Because these people can go buy a house now that’s five times bigger, in a better location, so eminent domain, when it comes to jobs, roads, the public good, I think it’s a wonderful thing, I’ll be honest with you, and remember, you’re not taking property, you know, the way you asked the question, the way other people — you’re paying a fortune for that property. Those people can move two blocks away into a much nicer house.”Trump concluded, “I think it’s a great subject. It’s a very interesting subject. I fully understand the conservative approach. But I don’t think it was explained to most conservatives.”

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/...king-property/

Yes, we know about that one. I'm talking about another one. Do you know of another one? The point is that far more properties are taken by tax laws than eminent domain laws. Lists and lists of them every week in your newspapers. So where is the outcry about the ones taken by the tyranny of tax laws without compensation? Did the Founders and the Bill of Rights intend for that? Certainly not on the federal level. What states and local communities do is really up to them and you, isn't it? It was the local community of New London, CT who did this to these people, not the federal government, not even the US Supreme Court, it was the local town. the same types of towns that foreclose on homeowners with delinquent property taxes because they've risen so high they can't afford them, or they lost their job and with the higher taxes can't pay them. Where are their property rights? Government wasting money on illegal aliens, raising property taxes to pay for it, homeowners can't pay them, government forecloses on the homes and sells them for cheap to durg running illegal aliens. Where is the outcry?

If Donald Trump has used that mechanism to buy a property, you can be assured of a big beautiful development on it. What Pfizer and the town did in New London is despicable with or without eminent domain, with or without the Kelo Decision, and is actually the perpetuation of a fraud. I wonder if there chemical emissions from the plant, that's why they wanted the people gone and they planned this development ruse to get them away from the plant?

Something far more sinister than a company "health club" was involved in this for Pfizer to want the town to take it alll the way to the US Supreme Court.

I think that what we should be looking at is what the candidate's position on these issues, not the issue itself, and deciding if the issue is a make or break for our vote. It is a personal decision.

They'll take your land to run a dangerous oil pipeline thru or to run LNG thru to EXPORT and make money for greedy, reckless corporations.

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Dumping on New Hill

How an enormous wastewater treatment plant wound up near a small town's historic district

By Rebekah L. Cowell

http://media2.fdncms.com/indyweek/im...ry-viewer.jpeg

• MAP BY J.P. TROSTLE

Inside the sanctuary of the 100-year-old New Hill First Baptist Church, the plush red carpet is so smooth you can see the tracks of the vacuum cleaner that ran across the floor the day before. Sun shines through stained-glass windows where families and friends join hands across oak pews. A youth choir sings accompanied by piano and snare drum. Pastor James Clanton opens with a call to worship and asks his congregation to be thankful. "God is good. He is so good." The congregation responds, "Yes, Jesus, yes."

Within the next few months, the church will get a new neighbor, one New Hill residents are not thankful for: a $327 million wastewater treatment plant across the street.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that Site 14—237 acres of farmland adjacent to the New Hill Historic District—is the best place to put the behemoth plant. Six years ago, Western Wake Partners, an alliance of Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs, which are predominantly white, decided New Hill, which is primarily African-American, is the ideal place to build a smelly, loud and ugly wastewater treatment plant.

Three other alternatives, including one on land owned by Progress Energy, would have been more remote and affected fewer people. But the people of New Hill have less clout than Progress Energy. The partners have largely dismissed New Hill residents' concerns over the site of the plant. "... seems to me New Hill is a ZIP code, not a community," wrote Cary Public Works Director Robert (Kim) Fisher in a July 2005 e-mail to water resources manager Leila Goodwin.

Yes, New Hill does have a ZIP code—27562—but it is also a small town on the fringes of western Wake County and home to about 1,800 people (all on septic systems because there has never been water or sewer service), a brick post office, a gas station, Victorian farmhouses with picket fences, large tracts of farmland and iron tracks that run along Old U.S. Highway 1—the original New Hope Valley Railway and transportation route for the tobacco harvested by New Hill farmers.

Unincorporated, the town has no agreed-upon boundaries. And because New Hill is small and quiet, it has become a target for developments that few towns would want—or be forced to accept.

The state is requiring the partners to build a new wastewater treatment plant to handle the increasing load from their growing populations.

But the new wastewater treatment plant, which is scheduled to begin construction this year, will not be built in Apex or Cary or any of the partners' towns. It will loom across the street from the New Hill First Baptist Church and playground, and a half-mile from the First Baptist Church of New Hill. The plant will sit within 1,000 feet of 23 homes. But who lives in those homes is as important: 87 percent of those approximately 230 residents immediately affected by the sewage treatment plant are African-American, on fixed incomes, elderly or retired.

"People here don't just move around," said Elaine Joyner, a lifelong resident who grew up in a house behind First Baptist Church. "They buy a house, raise their kids and settle down, and that's the one house they'll own for the rest of their lives."

Joyner says even if the plant generates new jobs, it won't help the retirees or the residents whose quality of life will be permanently damaged. "No one wants to sit on their porch and hear the sounds, or the smells, that will come from a wastewater treatment plant, nor deal with an increase of traffic," Joyner said.

It's not only the light pollution, smell, noise and traffic that could sour New Hill's peaceful atmosphere—the risk of a sewage spill or leak could threaten the community's environment and public health.

"If a sewage spill occurs on the selected site in New Hill, or on one of the many sewage lines running through the New Hill community, it will be catastrophic as every residence in New Hill, and the surrounding community, is serviced by a private well," the association wrote in 2006. "Also, in the rural community of New Hill, there are many farms that utilize farm ponds for drinking water for livestock and irrigation ... Even a small hole in a large sewage line ... will contaminate a lot of land and ponds prior to the leak being discovered and repaired."

This is just the latest insult to New Hill, parts of which have been eaten away by eminent domain. Just two miles outside of town brews Shearon Harris. Construction of Progress Energy's nuclear power plant devoured significant tobacco and agricultural farmland, as did the build-out of U.S. 1, as did the flooding of fields by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1973 to create Jordan Lake, as did the easements for Dixie Pipeline's underground high-pressure gas lines, as did easements for Progress Energy's transmission lines that will support Cary and Apex growth, not New Hill.

Nonetheless, as part of an environmental review for the wastewater treatment plant, the partners claimed New Hill residents have not been environmentally affected in the past.

For five years, the New Hill Community Association, a citizens group of black and white residents, have battled the partners and the plant. "Initially we requested the sewage plant not be placed in our community because we have had enough impacts," association members said at a 2008 community meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency. "When our plea was rejected, we then requested the partners move the sewage plant out of the center of our community, where it will impact our churches, cemeteries, playgrounds and, most of all, the people who live in close proximity to the site."

Throughout the U.S., including North Carolina, landfills, hazardous waste sites and other environmental threats or nuisances have historically been sited near low-income or minority communities. The treatment plant is another example of that practice, says the Rev. Robert Campbell, leader of the Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love Church of Chapel Hill and a member of the Coalition to End Environmental Racism. "In my opinion [this is] another underserved community of color [that] is the target of a larger municipality, that will make promises and not keep them."


Ironically, the Western Wake Partners originally posted on its website a strong statement in favor of protecting the neighbors in situating the plant: "The proposed facility must be located on a site that protects citizens' quality of life. This means keeping the facility footprint as far away as possible from homes, parks, churches, playgrounds, and other areas important to citizens. The residences directly affected by a location as well as those nearby are taken into account," the posting read.

That statement has since been removed from the partners' website.

The Town of Cary has led the charge for the new plant and its siting in New Hill. However, one council member did raise a question about the appropriateness of the location. In response to a question raised by a New Hill resident, in 2005, Cary Town Council member Jennifer Robinson sent an e-mail expressing her concern about New Hill as the preferred site for the plant. "Historical or societal issues were not considered when the site selection process was undertaken ... I was disappointed when I learned that the preferred site impacted the community as it does."

There were alternatives to Site 14, known as the old Seymour farm, which sits in the center of New Hill. In August 2004, the partners' environmental engineers and consultants ranked 29 potential locations for the plant, then whittled that list to 12. Site 14 ranked fourth, and the top three locations are owned by Progress Energy. The plant needed 140 to 180 acres; Progress Energy has 15,000—land it took from New Hill citizens in the '60s and '70s in anticipation of building four nuclear reactors (only one was built—by Shearon Harris).

In June 2005, Cary Town Manager William Coleman sent an e-mail to the partners, stating: "We had a meeting with Progress Energy today. The gist of the meeting was that Progress Energy does not want the wastewater plant on their site even if it could work economically. If Progress Energy does develop they will need a wastewater treatment plant to discharge their effluent too."

The state's water regulations require the partners that withdraw water from the Cape Fear River Basin, to return it there, too. In the case of the plant, treated wastewater would be pumped back into the river, meeting that requirement.

But locating the plant on Progress Energy property and then pumping discharge into Harris Lake, which is on the energy company's land, would have also satisfied that requirement. The final environmental impact statement lays out the many benefits of siting a plant on that property and discharging into the lake: "This option results in shorter effluent line, less pumping, and fewer greenhouse gas emissions from the pumping" as well as "greater flexibility in managing water resources on a regional basis as the water would be stored in the lake."

New Hill residents speculate Harris Lake wasn't considered because clearing regulatory hurdles would have delayed the project, which must be completed by 2013, by three years. However, that is an unnecessary delay. The partners didn't even analyze the possibility of Harris Lake until earlier this year. Had they done it in 2005, New Hill could have been spared, and the plant could have been built on schedule. "In short, they considered Harris Lake too late," said Chris Brook, an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, "and now they are just walking away from it."

Cary led the partners to the New Hill site, and it could lead them out of it. However, Cary remains entrenched in the plan, largely because of the additional time and moneyseveral million dollarsrequired to change it. (Cary bears most of the project costsnearly 60 percent. Holly Springs is on the hook for 5.3 percent, Apex 26.7 percent and Morrisville 8.4 percent.)

The partners had already selected New Hill when Harold Weinbrecht became the mayor of Cary. Nonetheless, he told the Indy that considering the timing and financial constraints, "I had no choice but to conclude that changing sites would not be in the best interest of the citizens of Cary."

The best interests of New Hill have been consistently excluded. In November 2004, Cary Public Information Officer Susan Moran sent an e-mail to Sharon Brown, a Wake County PIO, stating "the partners have agreed we want to avoid publicity as long as possible."

A month later, Holly Springs Town Manager Carl Dean pondered in an e-mail how to circumvent the public process: "We need to develop a method to handle these utility projects without the public hearing requirement."

Holly Springs now wants out of the deal. The town is seeking state permission to send more of its treated wastewater to, of all places, Harris Lake. The town had never planned to use the plant itself, but to use a pipe from the outside of the plant that would discharge to the Cape Fear River. If the state approves, Holly Springs will withdraw from the partnership and do just that, according to Holly Springs Mayor Dick Sears.

Apex Town Commissioner Bill Jensen said he has tried unsuccessfully to convince his fellow elected officials to move the site. "They are locked in at this point," he said.

In fact, Apex Town commissioners never voted on the site; staff members from the town's public works department decided on the site without commissioner input, according to minutes from a 2005 commission meeting.

Instead, Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly asked the town manager to send a letter to Cary approving of the Site 14. "We were misguided by our own town council," Jensen said, "and in my person opinion, Site 14 was just shoveled through."

Weatherly did not return calls seeking comment.

Morrisville Mayor Jackie Holcombe says she would support an alternative site in New Hill. "As far back as 2005 I had concerns about the site-selection process and the effect a Site 14 wastewater plant would have on our neighbors in New Hill," she said. Nevertheless, Holcombe is not concerned enough to withdraw from the partnership. "The partnership's need for an additional regional treatment plant is valid and meets current state policies of addressing water and sewer needs regionally," she said.

Bob Kelly, whose grandmother was born in New Hill in 1887, has lived on the family farm for 40 years. Retired from IBM, he has converted the tobacco farm into a tree farm. Like many New Hill residents, he has seen farmland eroded by progress. While the partners have seized hundreds of acres for this project, through eminent domain, they will need even more land for other plant infrastructure.

(Landowners are compensated for their losses in eminent domain cases, but the price offered for the acreage rarely, if ever, is at market rates. Landowners have to challenge the offer—and win, which is rare. The partners originally offered the Seymour family less than $3 million for 237 acres; the family successfully challenged the amount, and the partners paid $7.5 million—150 percent more than the original paltry offer.)

"We are being asked to give up more land for sewage pipelines. Those of us who will have the sewage lines crossing our property will not be able to connect to the facility—we just have the pleasure of losing our land," Kelly said.

That's one of the many ironies in the New Hill case. All of the residents are on septic. Because the land isn't suitable for additional septic systems, no new homes or businesses can be built in New Hill unless they are on a public water and sewer system.

As part of the deal with New Hill, the partners would hook up some residents within a half-mile radius of the plant to the Apex public system. However, there's a catch. According to a July 30 letter to New Hill residents, the partners are suggesting that the residents front the money for the hookups. The Town of Apex would reimburse the residents for all "reasonable costs," the letter says, but it does not list a time frame or define "reasonable."

The word "reasonable" is key. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents, known as the Record of Decision, state that the partners will provide "free installation of water and sewer up to a cost of $1,500 for water and $1,500 for sewer for each residence."

Yet many New Hill residents don't have $3,000 for the up-front costs. And, according to Brook, it's uncertain that the $3,000 subsidy would cover all the costs, especially for homes that are farther off the road and would need additional piping.

"The Record of Decision continually speaks of reimbursing folks for water and sewer hookup expenses," Brook said. "A lot of folks in this community just don't have $3,000, or however much it actually takes them to get connected, sitting around to spend on water and sewer hookup and then wait until Apex gets around to reimbursing them."

And if the pipes need to be replaced, the documents state, "costs associated with replacing existing deteriorated pipe are the responsibility of the property owner."

If construction stays on schedule, the plant will be complete in 2013. In the meantime, residents hope the partners will agree to several amenities for the community. In May, Brook sent a proposal to the partners' attorney, Glenn Dunn, asking for several concessions that would benefit New Hill residents: pay all costs (not merely those deemed "reasonable") of water and sewage connections for residents and expand the number of households eligible for those hookups to those within a half-mile of the treatment plant boundaries.

Brook requested that the partners pay New Hill property owners "fair compensation for easements" required for the plant. Other concessions include alerts for the community within 12 hours of sewage spills or leaks, construction of a community center or the renovation of a building in the New Hill Historic District, and a guarantee that at least 10 New Hill residents be employed at the plant.

These proposals are not intended to endorse the plant's construction, Brook said, but they are necessary to ensure that the community's needs are known. "We're not going to stop fighting it, but if they are going to do this, here are some things they need to do," Brook said.

For Bob Kelly and the association, the battle has had its upside. "One of the good things to come out of this ordeal is the community has come together," Kelly said. "All races have come together for a common cause. Even though I knew many of the people in the community, I did not really know them. I had not worked side by side with them and had not sat down in their homes and discussed things."

Back at the New Hill First Baptist Church, a sign with the acronym P.U.S.H. hangs in the annex. The message is simple: "Pray Until Something Happens," and until something happens, New Hill plans to do just that. This is the place they call home, and it is worth the fight.

Correction (Aug. 12, 2010): The print version of this map transposed the locations of the New Hill Baptist Church and the First Baptist Church of New Hill.

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http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/dum...nt?oid=1593974

I'm intimately familiar with this specific case because the Seymour farm is just five miles from my home. The family, who had owned the property for around 150 years, did not want to sell at any price. This was a farm, it was not blighted nor were there any outstanding taxes owed. Furthermore, as you can see there were other options for locating the plant but the local government that took the land persisted only because it was convenient for them. I would call taken a farm that has been family owned for 150 years is eminent domain abuse, especially when there were other alternatives.

Judy wrote:

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Yes, we know about that one. I'm talking about another one. Do you know of another one? The point is that far more properties are taken by tax laws than eminent domain laws.

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You're kidding, right? There are tons of properties taken by eminent domain laws. Oh, and land taken for unpaid taxes was never the issue.

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Originally Posted by Newmexican

I think that what we should be looking at is what the candidate's position on these issues, not the issue itself, and deciding if the issue is a make or break for our vote. It is a personal decision.

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You're right, Newmexican, folks have to make their own decision based on the whole-man concept and what's most important to them. I think it has been made abundantly clear where Trump stands on the issue of eminent domain. He supports it fully, even for "private projects." Okay, case closed. I'm ready to move on.

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Originally Posted by MW

You're kidding, right? There are tons of properties taken by eminent domain laws. Oh, and land taken for unpaid taxes was never the issue.

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I just asked you to name one, besudes the one in the Kelo Case. The issue is "taking", whether it's under a Constitutional right of eminent domain provided for in the US Constitution or through the police power of taxation which isn't. I'm making the issue of the tax tyranny which you seem to have no problem with.

Far more properties are taken without compensation through a tax foreclosure than eminent domain which includes a due process of law and fair market compensation, whereas tax foreclosures are police power takings with no fair market compensation at all.

Where is the outcry?! Why aren't properties stolen for unpaid taxes an issue with "conservatives"? Why aren't the people so upset about the Kelo Case which guarantees compensation even more upset about the taking of properties for unpaid taxes without compensation?

And no, I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious.

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Originally Posted by MW

You're right, Newmexican, folks have to make their own decision based on the whole-man concept and what's most important to them. I think it has been made abundantly clear where Trump stands on the issue of eminent domain. He supports it fully, even for "private projects." Okay, case closed. I'm ready to move on.

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No, the case is not closed. Trump supports the issue of eminent domain for private projects WHEN THERE IS a public benefit and good purpose. He would never support what happened to the properties in the Kelo Case. He would have already called his lawyers and told them to sue the town and Pfizer for fraud.

I have had the street in front of my house "taken". Our unprecedented regional government desingated a long recreational trail, but sent about 3/4 of a mile of it through our neighborhood and right in front of my house. Not so bad? No, there are scores of traffic law violators, people jogging down the middle of the street, heated confrontations between autos and trail users, traveling thieves and ne-er do wells, homeless capers coming buy, things stolen off the front porch. I can't leave anything in front or it's gone.. Then whenever I pull out of the driveway I have to go forward and do a thorough check to see that there is not some fool--idiot going down the street. Total pain in the a--.

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Originally Posted by Judy

No, the case is not closed. Trump supports the issue of eminent domain for private projects WHEN THERE IS a public benefit and good purpose. He would never support what happened to the properties in the Kelo Case. He would have already called his lawyers and told them to sue the town and Pfizer for fraud.

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Yes, if you consider a casino parking lot a "public benefit and good purpose" to take a persons private property. Personally, I don't consider the use of eminent domain justified in such a case, regardless of what you feel or the law says.

You're dead wrong about Trump not supporting the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Kelo decision!

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In 2005, however, Trump was delighted to find that the Supreme Court had okayed the brand of government-abetted theft that he’d twice attempted. “I happen to agree with it 100 percent,” he told Fox News’s Neil Cavuto of the Kelo decision.

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Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ert-verbruggen

Okay, it is well established that you support the 'taken' of private property, Trump supports it, and the U.S. Supreme Court supports it while I and many other Americans don't. Enough said, time to move on.

MW, I didn't say Trump didn't support the Kelo Decision of the US Supreme Court. I said he would never support what the town and Pfizer did with the properties after the town took them by eminent domain.

I support eminent domain. It's part of our US Constitution. It's an important part of progress. I personally don't support the Kelo Decision. I was against it then and am still against it because there's no guarantee in the decision that the taking be used for the purpose claimed under the right of eminent domain. What I'm saying is I don't believe for a second that Donald Trump would approve of the fraud that the town of New London, CT perpetuated against the community and the property owners, to have a taking for a purpose that was never delivered which means there was no plan or funding or serious intent to begin with to use the property for that purpose, otherwise there would have been a development, instead of lot growing weeds. That is fraud and a ruse for a false purpose.

You can't claim under oath in a court of law that you are taking a property to build condominiums, a health club and whatever else was planned on the basis of a public purpose of economic development to increase the tax base, win a decision, use taxpayer money to buy the homes, and then never build the development that was to generate the increased tax revenue.

At present, the town invested the money in the lawsuit, the town invested the money in acquiring the properties and moving a house, so where is the development that is to generate the economic development and increased tax revenue? It isn't there. A vacant lot is less tax revenue, not more, that is the exact opposite of the stated purpose and benefit presented to the US Supreme Court under oath, subject to perjury and that is fraud.

So what we have here is not a legal eminent domain taking, what we have here is an eminent domain fraud. And no one supports that.

No one took the Coking home under eminent domain for a casino parking lot. The courts didn't allow it, so it's a non-event. There was no eminent domain there involving Trump, he tried to buy it, he tried eminent domain, but lost on both efforts. Would the casino have been more successful with the property? Well, probably, he thought it would be. Would Ms. Coking and her family have come out better if she'd sold it directly to Trump? Yes, by $1.5 million. Did she make a good decision? Probably not. Does anyone care? No, she made her decision, she fought Trump, she fought the eminent domain, she won, but lost in the end. Her choice to make.

The issue is settled law now, as most Supreme Court Rulings are.

So, the solution is not on the federal level, it's on the state and local level, where it should be to begin with involving state and local government takings. If people are upset about state and local government takings, you don't whine to the federal government or Presidential candidates about it, you whine to state legislatures and local governments, pass laws to prevent them, and end it there, where it should be settled.

Judy Wrote:

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No one took the Coking home under eminent domain for a casino parking lot. The courts didn't allow it, so it's a non-event.

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Yes, but it certainly wasn't from lack of trying by Donald Trump!

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Originally Posted by MW

Judy Wrote:



Yes, but it certainly wasn't from lack of trying by Donald Trump!

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Oh, absolutely. You realize the Vera Coking property was a 29 room boarding house, right?