Eminent Domain

related to takings? periodic eruptions of rw worry about; shoot, shovel, shut up

odd right is not losing its shit over? in Texas?!

no merri

may be needed for climate mitigation/adaptation?

needed for mass transit, urban planning, sust cities thus ~ag21

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61 YO WOMAN arrest eminent domain wired mag

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omg

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/pipeline-plans/

:{:{}:

an 721

'Triumph for environmental justice': Oil companies scrap pipeline plans amid grassroots pressure

Julia Conley and Common Dreams July 04, 2021

Community activists in Memphis, Tennessee and northwest Mississippi celebrated a grassroots victory on Saturday after two oil companies canceled plans to build a pipeline that would have run through wetlands and several low-income, majority-Black neighborhoods.

Valero and Plains All American Pipeline had long planned to construct the Byhalia Connection pipeline, which would have been 49 miles long and linked two pipelines that transport crude oil to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

The two companies announced they were canceling the project "due to lower U.S. oil production resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic," but opponents of the pipeline noted that the announcement followed grassroots organizing by climate action advocates, homeowners, and elected officials at the local and federal levels.

"This is a win for the entire community of Memphis, Tennessee, but especially those in the Black community who fought it courageously," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, tweeted.

Community members in Memphis neighborhoods including White Chapel, Westwood, and Boxtown objected to the pipeline project, which would have run over the Memphis Sand Aquifer—leading to fears that an oil spill would pollute the drinking water of about one million people.

Local organizations Protect Our Aquifer and Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) led rallies and garnered the support of former Vice President Al Gore and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), while the Memphis City Council weighed an ordinance to make it harder for the companies to begin construction.

MCAP leader Justin J. Pearson organized canvassers and lobbied the city council, and called Friday's announcement "an extraordinary testament to what Memphis and Shelby County can do when citizens build power toward justice."

A representative of the two oil companies sparked local outrage when they said South Memphis, where the Boxtown community was established in the 1860s by people who had been enslaved, had been identified as "the point of least resistance."

"We've shown them that we aren't the path of least resistance," said Pearson. "We are the path of resilience."

Lawyers for the two companies began legal proceedings against local landowners who refused to make deals with project officials; they planned to invoke eminent domain against the property owners.Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case in New Jersey that a company could use eminent domain to build a natural gas pipeline on state land.

"Their playbooks are the same everywhere," Pearson said on Twitter on Friday. "Find the poor. Appease the rich and politically powerful. Misinform the community. Make local leaders afraid to stop them. Exploit the poor. Reap billions in profits from the deaths of the poor and marginalized."

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which helped landowners fight the two companies in the legal battle, called Friday's announcement "a triumph for environmental justice."

"We are so inspired by the people of Boxtown, Westwood, and White Chapel, and the work of our amazing partners MCAP and Protect Our Aquifer, for showing what is possible when a community stands together," said Amanda Garcia, director of the SELC's Tennessee office.

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Appalachian Storage Hub Advances

Beyond HB 4268, in the days surrounding Lucas's removal from the hearing, both the West Virginia legislature and congressional delegation took steps to advance a proposal that would create a petrochemical storage and refining hub in the state, which would be fueld by fracked oil and gas development in the region's Marcellus and Utica shale basins.

That hub is set to receive $83.7 billion in capital from China, an agreement finalized in a ceremony overseen by President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and which took place during a U.S. Department of Commerce trade mission to China in November.

On February 7, one day after DeSmog published an investigation on the proposed Appalachian Storage Hub, which would also cover Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the West Virginia House of Delegates introduced a resolution (H.R. 7) calling on Congress to pass various pieces of legislation which would create favorable regulatory conditions for the hub. This was also one day before Lucas was ousted from the hearing on the forced pooling bill.

The same day as the Lucas incident, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a major backer of the federal bills, co-wrote a letter asking the Senate Appropriations Committee to support and continue funding the Department of Energy's Title XVII loan guarantee program, which came under scrutiny after providing a $535 million loan to the ill-fated solar company, Solyndra. The Energy Department, as DeSmog previously reported, is considering offering a $1.9 billion loan guarantee to develop the petrochemical hub in West Virginia, a move lauded by Manchin, who is up for re-election in November.

In his office's press release about the letter supporting the loan guarantee program, Manchin explicitly linked the funding request with the prospective creation of the petrochemical hub in his state.

“The Title XVII Innovative Loan Guarantee has a successful track record of helping finance innovative American energy technologies,” reads the press release. “In 2017, Senator Manchin introduced the Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP) Act to ensure a regional storage hub, like the proposed Appalachian Storage Hub, is eligible for the Department of Energy’s successful Title XVII loan guarantee program.”

The proposed state bill, H.R. 7, requests that Congress “renew its support for and fully fund the Department of Energy’s highly successful Loan Programs Office.”

border wall

https://features.propublica.org/eminent-domain-and-the-wall/the-taking-texas-government-property-seizure/

https://www.alternet.org/environment/energy-transfer-partners-company-behind-dakota-access-pipeline-strong-armed-landowners

Four Pennsylvania residents filed a federal lawsuit this week against Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), claiming the Fortune 500 company and its subsidiaries violated their constitutional rights by engaging in illegal surveillance and harassment against landowners and pipeline protestersand caused emotional distress and other harm.

The suit, which seeks compensatory damages, also names ETP's private security provider, North Carolina-based TigerSwan, as well as local law enforcement officers who arrested pipeline opponents on charges that ultimately were not prosecuted. It claims that energy companies like ETP are increasingly relying on de facto public-private partnerships with government to "strong-arm" opponents into silence with false arrests and malicious prosecution.

"Since May of 2015, every day of my life has been affected by the plans to build this pipeline, and the lengths that Energy Transfer Partners will go to in the pursuit of profit," said plaintiff Elise Gerhart, who lives on property that will be crossed by the pipeline. "We've been needlessly harassed by agencies and violently threatened by individuals who've been intentionally incited and mobilized."

The lawsuit centers on ETP's Mariner East 2 pipeline project that would carry fracked gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions of West Virginia, Ohio and western Pennsylvania to refineries near Philadelphia, with much of the product to be exported overseas for making plastics. ETP is also behind several other controversial petro pipeline projects including the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana, the Trans-Pecos in Texas and the Dakota Access in North Dakota, the target of massive demonstrations last year in which Native American protesters and their supporters faced attack dogs, rubber bullets, mace and water cannons. Pipelines are a growing concern across the South: Of the 56 interstate pipeline projects that have sought permits from federal regulators since 2013, 31 run at least partly through Southern states.

Elise Gerhart's mother, Ellen Gerhart, also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, has owned a 27-acre property in central Pennsylvania's rural Huntingdon County with her husband, Stephen, since 1983 and has cared for it according to the principles of the state's forest stewardship program, which encourages private landowners "to implement sound forest management practices." In 2015, Sunoco, which has since merged with ETP, filed a declaration of taking in county court in order to gain access to a wooded part of the property to begin clearing trees for the planned pipeline. The court granted the company's request in March 2016, establishing an easement on the property and barring the Gerharts from interfering with access. There's currently a lawsuit working its way through the state courts over whether the taking was legal; it comes at a time of growing controversy over how pipeline companies are gaining access to private lands.

At the time the court granted Sunoco/ETP access rights to the Gerhart property, the Mariner East 2 project had neither the necessary state permits for construction nor what's known as "possessory interest" in the easement, which wasn't granted by the county court until April 2017. The lawsuit claims that, without possessory interest, the company had no legal right to exclude anyone from the easement — but that's not what happened.

Arrest to silence?

In late March 2016, shortly after the court granted the easement, the Philadelphia-based environmental advocacy group Clean Air Council posted a public event to Facebook encouraging people to oppose the tree-cutting planned for the Gerhart property. On March 29, 2016, dozens of protesters arrived and set up an encampment,with some sitting in trees to block their removal.

Agents of ETP/Sunoco bearing chainsaws also arrived on the land, escorted by state police and officers from the local sheriff's department. They were eager to begin work as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations prohibit cutting trees on the Gerhart property after March 31 to protect migratory birds and an endangered bat.

Three of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were arrested that day:

Protester Alex Lotorto of Milford, Pennsylvania, claims he was using a walkie-talkie to let other protesters know where the tree cutters were but law enforcement officers accused him of using it to disrupt work at the site. Arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and criminal contempt, he was held on a $200,000 bond he could not afford to pay and stayed in jail for three days. Once the tree-cutting stopped on April 1, his bond was reduced to $5,000 unsecured and he was released.

Protester Elizabeth Glunt of Altoona, Pennsylvania, entered the easement only briefly to warn tree cutters that they were getting too close to tree-sitting protesters, according to the lawsuit. She was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal contempt. Held in jail until her family raised the money to pay her $100,000 bond, Glunt was strip-searched and claims she suffered emotional distress as a result.

The lawsuit states that Ellen Gerhart approached but did not enter the easement area to warn tree cutters that they were too close to tree sitters. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and indirect criminal contempt and released on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

Just over a week later, on April 7, 2016, Ellen Gerhart was arrested again on the same charges when tree cutters returned to her property unannounced and she approached them to warn that they were violating federal wildlife regulations. Elise Gerhart was also arrested for climbing a tree and charged with disorderly conduct.

Smears of Russian ties

All of the charges against the plaintiffs were ultimately dismissed.The lawsuit says that's because the arrests weren't part of a legitimate pursuit of justice but rather an effort to "arbitrarily and maliciously send a message to the Gerhart family and their supporters to discourage their opposition to the pipeline and its construction and thereby chill their First Amendment rights."

The lawsuit also takes aim at TigerSwan, ETP's private security provider, based in the town of Apex near Raleigh, North Carolina. The company was founded in 2008 by retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Delta Force operator James Reese.

According to company documents obtained by The Intercept, an investigative news outlet whose reporting is cited in the lawsuit, TigerSwan's tactics against pipeline protesters in five states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and Texas — included military-style counterterrorism measures such as aerial surveillance, radio eavesdropping, and infiltration of camps and activist circles.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say similar tactics are being deployed against Mariner pipeline opponents, who cite helicopters and drones flying low over the Gerhart property outside of the easement, and unmarked vehicles parking nearby and shining high-beam lights onto the land. TigerSwan has been operating in Pennsylvania at least since April 2017.

The suit further charges that ETP and TigerSwan have repeatedly sent an agent to the Gerhart property to attempt to infiltrate the protest encampment. While there, the lawsuit says, the agent took photos that were later posted to the Facebook page of a shadowy group called PA Progress to identify Ellen and Elise Gerhart. Other PA Progress posts called Elise Gerhart an "anarchist" and falsely accused her of sabotage. The lawsuit suggests that the page, which has since been taken down, was connected to TigerSwan.

The campaign against the protesters also deployed misleading propaganda in other ways. For example, the chair of TigerSwan's advisory board, retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks, had an op-ed published on the news website PennLive.com in May warning that Mariner pipeline opponents would engage in violence and cause environmental damage. However, he did not identify his connection to TigerSwan and its interest in the pipeline project. The website has since added a note to the op-ed disclosing his position and stating that Marks' work will not appear there again.

The lawsuit further claims that the Gerharts were the targets of misinformation spread online, which it also connects to TigerSwan. For example, it points to posts atBlack Badger Report — a pseudonymously written website that claims to be concerned about the proliferation of "fake news" but whose front page features just six stories since June, all of them critical of pipeline protesters except for one condemning The Intercept of Communist ties — falsely accused Elise Gerhart and other protesters of being fronts for Russian government attempts to disrupt U.S. energy markets. The lawsuit ties the online attacks to TigerSwan through a web of internet connections involving TigerSwan Vice President Derek Borror.

The inaccurate posts not only caused "reputational harm," the lawsuit says, but "have incited commenters to threaten to injure or kill Elise Gerhart and her supporters," which in turn have caused her "mental anguish and emotional distress."

The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial. Neither ETP nor TigerSwan responded to a request for comment.

Sue Sturgis

tigerswan sez rw militia will fight pipeline on em dom; on 1st ggl page only one tepid wash ex econ on quibble on price

i did find one( pretty reasonable actually) discussion bd: (but had to go past 2 art'l on bundy standoff) but no PO/call to arms

The Daily Caller reports:

quote:

* *

Eminent domain was used in other portions of the route in Iowa, prompting farmers to sue the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) in an effort to prevent the company from gaining the right to use the property-seizing tool. A judge eventually allowed the DAPL use of the land.

* *

In May 2016, farmers began suing the pipeline developers in an effort to prevent the use of eminent domain to seize private property for the benefit of the pipeline owners. There are 1,295 properties along the 346-mile route through Iowa.

As of November 2016, the owners of 17 parcels have sued over the fact that the State of Iowa has handed over 200 pieces of land under eminent domain laws.

While the pipeline owners have attempted to obtain voluntary easements in most cases, it appears that when negotiations for easements break down the pipeline developers resort to seizing the private property via eminent domain. Moreover, the use of eminent domain calls even the "voluntary" easements into question since it is quite plausible that the pipeline developers "encourage" the granting of the easements by threatening to pursue eminent domain seizures should the land owner refuse the easement.

In October, according to farmer Cyndi Coppola, pipeline developers trespassed on her farm in Calhoun County, Iowa and began digging up the topsoil for pipeline construction. Coppola was arrested on her own property for protesting the dig.

In spite of the blatant violation to private property that eminent domain presents, many conservative politicians — the same ones who claim to support property rights — also support eminent domain. Indeed, during the Republican debates this year, Republican candidates expressed unwavering support for eminent domain when pressed on the topic of oil pipelines.

Republicans have even begun supporting eminent domain for seizure of private lands for private uses. Historically, eminent domain was restricted (at least in theory) to public uses such as highways. The use of eminent domain for private uses, such as a Trump hotel in one case and privately-owned shopping centers in others, has long been seen as an abuse.

During the Republican debate, Jeb Bush attempted to differentiate his support for eminent domain from Donald Trump's support. Bush wrongly claimed that the Keystone Pipeline — which also relies on eminent domain — is for "public use" when the pipeline is privately owned and built to profit the owners. Trump exposed Bush's deception, and in the process essentially demonstrated that both candidates favor the seizure of private land for someone else's private use.

The situation is no different with the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa. The Iowa government is attempting to seize private land and hand it over to other private owners because to do so is convenient for the pipeline owners and their supporters in government.

Nevertheless, defenders of the pipeline's trespassing are likely to maintain that violations of property rights such as this are acceptable because the former owners receive "just compensation." In cases like this, supporters of eminent domain like to throw around a lot of fancy terms like "highest and best use" in order to obscure the core issues at hand. But, these terms do not erase the fact that if the owner were willing to sell for the price offered, then government coercion would not be necessary to seize the land. Anthony Gregory explains in detail:

quote:

* *

In the market, any compensation that is voluntarily agreed upon by both parties to a transaction is properly seen as just. If buyer and seller or employer and employee are both willing to make a deal, their freedom to do so, at any mutually agreeable price, is the fulfillment of justice in the world of economic exchange...

The state, unlike market participants, does not make its transactions through voluntary persuasion and bargaining, but through violence and the threat of violence. Certainly in the case of Eminent Domain — which means "supreme lordship" — we see that the victims of seized assets have never consented, otherwise a pure exchange could take place that requires no police power. No such coerced transaction can be said to entail "just compensation," since compensation is only just when the party being compensated agrees to the deal.

Oftentimes, the state claims it is offering a "fair market value" for the property it seeks to seize, but this is a sham. The market price for something is, by definition, the price that both parties consent to. In a fair market exchange, each party gives up something he values less for something he values more, or else he wouldn't agree to it.

It is only through such a voluntary transaction that we can determine what something's market value is in the first place. Market value is not universal, but particular to the assets exchanged in a specific transaction. For any given piece of property, there can be no market value without market exchange.

When the state has to rely on the coercive power of Eminent Domain, it is a sure sign that the property owner is not being given something he values more in exchange for something he values less, and it is a perversion of language to describe the compensation, however high, as having anything to do with the market.

* *

But, don't expect this to stop builders and developers who fancy themselves as paragons of civilization who merely need to sweep aside the hicks and rubes who get in the way of "progress." Donald Trump has even gone so far as to claim that owners of seized property "at least get fair market value, and if they're smart, they'll get two or three times the value of their property."

At least one study has shown, however, that this is not true at all, and "people who lose their property to eminent domain proceedings are almost never made whole."

If confronted with this, supporters of eminent domain would likely stick to their claim that government seizure of private property — much like taxation — is merely the price we pay for civilization. Trump summed it up when he claimed at the Republican debate that:

quote:

* *

Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country, for our country. Without it, you wouldn't have roads, you wouldn't have hospitals, you wouldn’t have anything. You wouldn't have schools, you wouldn't have bridges.

* *

This is just a long-winded way of saying "without government, who will build the roads?"

...

a well eg militia

http://www.awrm.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=001610;p=1

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/individual-property-rights-trump-keystone-xl-in-nebraska/article/2544413

...Keystone defenders also make many arguments: Building pipelines creates jobs. More oil could mean cheaper oil. More oil from Canada and North Dakota means less oil from Venezuela and Iran.

But politics weighs heavy on the pro-Keystone side too. Keystone divides the Left -- pitting greens against labor unions -- and it's a rare winning issue for Republicans because Americans love oil and energy independence.

To many conservatives, Keystone opposition reeks of unyielding liberal opposition to development, a stance conservatives and libertarians deride as NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard.

But here’s the thing: NIMBYism is problematic from a free-enterprise view only if it’s used metaphorically. If somebody else is trying to build something literally through your back yard, shouldn’t you have the right to say no?

And from north to south, that’s exactly what Keystone XL’s owners are doing: working with state governments to use eminent domain and force reluctant landowners to allow the pipeline through their property.

Merrick County, Nebraska, is farmland. Randy Thompson co-owns about 400 acres out there, which he runs as a small ranching and farming operation, according to his telling.

Thompson spoke with TransCanada representatives, who sought easements over his ranch. The company would pay Thompson for the right to run the pipeline through his land, including the space needed to build the pipeline. Thompson would retain most property rights, especially after construction was done, but he would need to cede some land rights to TransCanada.

Thompson said no, arguing that the pipeline could rupture or leak, tainting the valuable aquifer (natural underground reservoir) that lay beneath that part of Nebraska.

So on April 7, 2011, Thompson got a letter from TransCanada Senior Land Coordinator Tim Irons.

“The proposed route of a crude oil pipeline, known as Keystone XL, crosses a portion of your property,” the letter began. “To construct the project, we must acquire permanent and temporary easements, and possibly other pipeline and construction related land rights” from Thompson’s property, Irons wrote.

“It is our strong preference to negotiate a voluntary easement acquisition with each property owner,” but "negotiations are not progressing to a voluntary settlement in a timely manner.”

Irons’ next line was the gut punch: “In such circumstances, property laws in Nebraska and most other jurisdictions allow proponents of projects that are in the broader public interest to use eminent domain to acquire the easement.”

In other words: Accept our price and our terms, or we’ll forcibly take your property rights away.

Eventually, Nebraska approved the taking and approved the pipeline construction. Thompson and two other Nebraska landowners teamed up with environmentalist Keystone opponents and sued.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved the pipeline under a law that passed in 2012. That law clarified that pipeline companies had eminent-domain authority, and gave to the governor some powers formerly reserved for the Nebraska Public Service Commission.

Judge Stephanie Stacy, in the Lancaster County District Court, ruled that the Nebraska constitution didn’t allow the governor to have such authority. “[B]ecause the Governor's actions … approving the Keystone XL Pipeline route were predicated on an unconstitutional statute,” Judge Stacy wrote, “the court also finds the Governor's actions in that regard must be declared null and void.”

...

felton water

Residents of Felton have been paying close attention to a local TV advertisement targeting voters in nearby Monterey. “In 2005, we voted for a public takeover of our water system,” says Felton music teacher Beth Hollenbeck, on screen. Hollenbeck pulls a water bill out of her mailbox: “If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have voted for it.”

The ad was paid for by California American Water (also a supporter of KAZU), the corporation that once owned Felton’s waterworks, and which could lose ownership of Monterey’s system too if voters pass Measure O on the June 3rd ballot. In the commercial, Hollenbeck calls Measure O “a risk we can’t afford.” Off camera, she says the jury’s still out on Felton’s newly public system.“Maybe I feel in the long run that Cal Am might be a little more accountable to us,” she explains, “but I don’t know that we are worse off, no, I don’t.

American policy debates often hinge on one simple question: public or private? Across the US, cash hungry local governments are increasingly looking to privatize public services to help maintain aging infrastructure. But like people in Felton, some rate payers on the Monterey Peninsula have bridled at ongoing rate increases and alleged mismanagement of their water system under Cal Am.

Advocates in Monterey say a public takeover could reduce spending on water in the long run. But Hollenbeck says activists in Felton overstated the cost savings that have come with joining the public San Lorenzo Valley (SLV) Water District. “When I did the commercial,” she says, “what I really wanted to say was ‘guess what?’ It costs money to run a water company, whether you’re private or public.’”

Barbara Sprenger, an organizer with Felton FLOW, the group that led the local campaign for public water, says Cal Am’s message on Felton misleading.“They have been saying that we’re dealing with huge rate increases here, without mentioning that we were dealing with huge, much larger, rate increases regularly from Cal Am,” she says.

When she first got involved in 2002, Sprenger was motivated mainly by a desire for more public input on water. She says that much really has changed since the SLV Water District took over. “Everybody who governs it, we see them in the supermarket, we can call them up on the phone. Water’s just too important to have so little control over.”

One of those people is Rick Rogers, Director of Operations for the Water District. In the hills of Felton, Rogers unlocks a gate and walks down a narrow set of stairs to the Fall creek fish ladder, a deep pool where a series of concrete steps help migrating salmon swim upstream. This is the source of Felton’s water.

“When we took over, this fish ladder and intake was neglected,” Rogers explains. “The maintenance was almost non-existent. It was just patched–sandbags, go plug the hole. We have $200,000 into just saving what was here.”

Even after six years of steady repairs, Rogers says much of Felton’s system is no better—it’s littered with defunct equipment, leaky tanks, and pump houses full of exposed wiring.

Though San Lorenzo Valley inherited these problems from Cal Am, Rogers acknowledges that Cal Am inherited many of them from the previous owner.

According to Heather Cooley, a water researcher with the Pacific Institute, old water systems around the country have similar maintenance problems. “We have not been investing in these systems to repair them, to replace them.”

But Rogers says the Water District had no opportunity to see what shape the system was in before they bought it. Their appraisal valued it at $7.6-million; at one point, Cal Am said it was worth $46-million. “We had a tour, one tour set up,” Rogers says. It was given by You couldn’t tell from the tour what was working and what wasn’t.”

The reason for that is simple: Cal Am’s system was never for sale. “It’s not a willing buyer willing seller situation where you open your doors and allow someone to come in and let their due diligence team decide what to do,” says Joe Conner, who represented Cal Am in negotiations with the water district.”

As a result, the only way for Felton to buy it was through eminent domain, and any due diligence had to be done by an independent party hired through the courts. “This is an adversarial proceeding. If they’d wanted a more detailed inspection, they could have hired another engineering firm, and they could have asked the court,” Conner says. “It would have cost more money to do that.”

With both sides wary of the costs of a trial, they settled out of court. In the end, Felton spent $13.4-million, about 20% more than what residents had voted to spend by taking out a municipal bond.

“Personally I think we paid too much for it,” says John Fasolas, another member of Felton FLOW. “But they knew how much we had, so they were able to work it out to take what we had.”

Six years after Cal Am left town, it’s impossible to be certain whether Felton rate payers are actually saving money. Including payments on Felton's 30 year bond, Fasolas’ water bills come out to about $14 more each month than he paid before the takeover. There’s no way to know how much rates would have gone up if Cal Am had stayed on, but Fasolas says he’s gotten something far more important: “water independence.”

“For me, it’s a really great feeling knowing that we’re in control, that our environment, and our environmental concerns, are how our district operates. And the monies we spend stay right here in our valley.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/6/california_city_threatens_to_use_eminent

http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2014/will-california-worsen-its-already-terrible-eminent-domain-laws/

1/14

When the infamous Kelo v. New London was decided in 2005, California was already one of the worst states in the nation when it came to eminent domain. In the five years leading up to that decision, California had used or threatened eminent domain against home and business owners some 858 times for the benefit of private developers. When the decision sparked public outrage, the California League of Cities and their allies in state government managed to get Proposition 99 passed—an initiative that actually expanded the government’s power to condemn property for private benefit.

Most eminent domain abuse in California came under the banner of “redevelopment,” the process whereby government officials condemn land and give it over to politically well-connected developers to build shopping centers and pretty condo complexes. Not only do the developers benefit from getting cheap real estate and other perks, but local Redevelopment Agencies got to keep a large portion of the tax revenue that these projects raised. That didn’t sit well with Gov. Jerry Brown, who abolished the Redevelopment Agencies in 2011—not because he’s a fan of private property rights (he’s not) but because he wanted that tax money for the state.

Since then, there have been several efforts to resurrect redevelopment, just under a friendlier name. Sen. Darrell Steinberg, for instance, has sponsored SB 1, which would bring back redevelopment under the name “sustainable communities.” All it would do is create new entities exercising the same powers as the old Redevelopment Agencies. This is possible because while Gov. Brown killed off the Redevelopment Agencies, the California Redevelopment Law remains on the books.

SB 1 is still sitting in the wings, but just before Christmas, the law firm of Rutan & Tucker—the leading California law firm for cities that want to steal your land for redevelopment—filed a new ballot initiative with an even sweeter-sounding title. It would bring back redevelopment as the “Jobs and Education Development Initiative.” But what’s even more remarkable is how it would expand the power of eminent domain even further than California’s already extremely broad Redevelopment Law allows. Indeed, if this initiative were to pass, it would essentially declare the whole state of California “blighted.”

Quick background: to take property for redevelopment, a local redevelopment agency (typically the City Council) has to declare an area “blighted.” They don’t have to declare each structure to be blighted—they can condemn whole neighborhoods, including perfectly adequate property, if lots down the street or around the corner are “blighted.” And what is the definition of “blight”? The Redevelopment Law contains two lists of factors (“physical” and “economic”), and the officials have to declare that one item from each list is present. That’s all. And the factors are already very vague. My personal favorite is “conditions that prevent or substantially hinder the viable use or capacity of buildings or lots.” What does that mean? It means whatever the government says it means.

That’s the currentlaw. It is already so bad that practically any property in the state can be declared blighted if local officials want to do it. What the new initiative would do is expand these two lists even more.

For example, it changes “conditions that prevent or substantially hinder the viable use or capacity of buildings or lots” to “Factors that prevent or substantially hinder the viable use, reuseor capacity of areas.” And it adds “faulty or inadequate infrastructure, or other similar factors” to the list of items that demonstrate “physical” blight. It also adds a new item to the list of “economic” factors that prove blight: “Unemployment rates in the locality or the county that are in excess of the national or statewide average, as determined by the latest information from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and the California Employment Development Department.” Again, the government only has to prove one “physical” factor and one “economic” factor to prove blight—and then that lets them use eminent domain.

Under this list, the mere existence of a structure would be a physical factor proving blight—since the existence of a structure “substantially hinders” the “reuse” of that “area.” And potholes or traffic jams would certainly prove “inadequate infrastructure.” As for unemployment, not only isCalifornia’s unemployment rate *always* higher than the national average, but note that this initiative doesn’t impose any time limit. If the area’s jobless rate exceeds the national ratefor even a single day, that would be an “economic” factor proving the existence of blight, and authorizing the use of eminent domain.

It is no exaggeration to say that if this initiative passes, it would declare the entire state of California to be “blighted” and allow government to condemn property to do with as it pleases practically at whim.

The initiative also allows the government to fund construction of practically anything. It would allow government to “pay all or part of the value of the land for and the cost of…construction of any building that is publicly owned either within or without a project area,” if the bureaucrats claim that doing so would be “of benefit to the project area or the immediate neighborhood,” or even of another project area. They could do this whenever they think that it would “assist in the elimination of one or more blighting conditions.”

Thus if bureaucrats claimed that building a new shopping center—owned by the city but leased to Costco or Home Depot for a dollar a year—would create a single job, why then they could take away your home or business and build that center with taxpayer funds. This initiative would make the state of California basically the sole entity deciding where to build and where not to build in the state of California.

You might think that at least owner-occupied homes are safe, since Prop. 99 declared that the state could not take those for redevelopment. But actually, Prop. 99 said that owner occupied homes could still be taken if the owner’s lived there less than a year, and even then can be taken for a “public work or improvement”—which is defined as “facilities or infrastructure for the delivery of public services such as education, police…recreation…libraries…[et cetera,] and private uses incidental to, or necessary for, the public work or improvement.” Thus owner-occupied homes are protected only in very limited circumstances. Build a police office or a community center into your shopping mall, and you get around that barrier.

For more on this proposition, consult our friends at the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights.

mass trans high speed rail

http://www.californiaenvironmentallawblog.com/high-speed-rail/california-high-speed-rail-authority-gains-new-approvals-to-move-project-forward-eminent-domain-proc/