Years Later, Land Seized in Kelo Decision Used for Debris Dump
by Brian GarstIn 2005, Kelo v. City of New London made eminent domain infamous. The widely reviled Supreme Court ruling gave the go ahead for the city of New London to use eminent domain for taking private property in order that it be given to a private company for “economic development.”
The public response was one of outrage. Facing the potential wrath of voters, politicians across the country moved to add new protections against such abusive seizures. But that wasn’t enough to save the homes of the folks in New London, whose property never would be developed. Pfizer, the intended beneficiary of the land theft, walked away years ago from their development plans.
Now, to add new insult to injury, the vacant lot is a dump. Literally.
Following hurricane Irene, the city designated the site as a place to dump storm debris, and citizens can be seen doing just that in this video on the local paper’s website.
Doesn’t that make you feel all warm inside? The Supreme Court reassured us in Kelo that the government orchestrated theft “would be executed pursuant to a “carefully considered” development plan.” What they forgot to mention is that careful consideration from politicians is worth about as much as the city’s new debris dump, which is to say: diddly squat.
The fact of the matter is that the development of the property was already being “carefully considered” by the folks that owned it, as is the case for all privately held property, and in their careful consideration they wanted to keep living on it. The lesson of Kelo is not merely on the illusory nature of our property rights. It’s also about the abject failure that is central planning, and the inability of political forces to better plan economic activity than the private sector.
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79 Comments
That's just f'ing perfect.
Another shovel-ready job bites the dust.
You’re not being fair Brian, “Kelo” was vitally important for the survival of the Republic. ~sarc~
Kelo is a prime example of statist Washington in it’s constant usurpation of out sacred Constitution. Many, many more firings are required, come on 2012!
People need to wake up as to what Agenda 21 is. It is real, it is happening and it is deadly. George Soros, along with the U.N. and Mr. Obama's Administration are actively trying, and succeeding with this domestic terror of a program.
Communists do not believe anyone should have private property, individual rights or any religion other that believing in Government.
And here I thought all politicos were dedicated to the well being of the constituents they served. What a shock to discover it's in fact just the opposite. Oh for shame, for shame. Let's rectify this in 2012 from the local level all the way to the freeloading occupants in the big buildings in spin city east..
If memory serves, gov Christie opted out of this program. However, you are correct. Americans should be very aware what some politicos, bunny and tree huggers, and the UN wish to do to our country and its citizenry.
One of the most interesting elements of the Kelo decision is that the conservative members of the Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs, who were also supported by the NAACP, AARP and other more liberal groups. This is a great example of conservativism being not about protecting the rich, but protecting all from the over reach of government.
They would have had to kill me to take my land.
Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently, for the same reason. Robin Williams.
And they would have. That's the point most miss with the liberal agenda. People don't matter, the plan matters period.
government promises are worth a bucket of warm spit
What property "rights?" Animals have more "rights" to property than people do. Or whatever new thing some money "donating" group has their panties in a bunch over.
UNDERSTANDING PROGRESSIVES 101:
http://www.popmodal.com/video/9000/UNDERSTANDING-...
" …the government orchestrated theft “would be executed pursuant to a “carefully considered” development plan.”
'government' and 'carefully considered development plan' = oil and water
(i guess 'oil' is a bad choice to represent 'government', as the government's ''carefully considered development plan" is to not develop oil).
Are you sure you didn't mispell "spit"?
Kudos.
EVERYTHING the government wants, or says they want to do, is a LIE !!!
The Citizens who lost property need to sue the Government for many Billions of Dollars.
The trouble is it looks like the people there will get nothing because the Citizens are White.
Had the Citizens been Black the Federal Government would have already paid them Billions for the trouble the Government caused.
Hell, the Federal Government would have paid Blacks who did not even own property there money, 50,000.00 each as a matter of fact.
This is your brain:
Susette Kelo's house resting placidly on its original foundation unmolested.
This is your brain on drugs:
Kelo's formally owned lot that is now, literally, a dump directly resulting from over-reaching in your face screw the little folks too big for its britches New London Big Government. Screw you New London Big Government. You're a bunch of turds.
I can't remember if it was a television documentary or I read it someplace where the government is making living impossible for some people in the desert also. Instead of just blatantly taking the land from people that have lived there for over twenty years and are self-sufficient, they are sending the EPA and all those bureacratic numbskulls and issuing so many violations (again after 20 years) that the land owners are just abandoning their properties.
Marxist-Nazi administration. Why do they need desert land? (please don't ask what State this was but how many have deserts in them?) Point is, this is still happening and were talking a lot of acres.
It's definitely an infringement on basic property rights. In California, the ultra-Leftist Coastal Commission set out to "protect the coastline for all people" but ended up creating uber-exclusive enclaves for the very rich. The "everyday" person gets a lousy campground across a busy highway to the beach, while the super-rich build 35,000 sq. ft. homes on their "private beaches." Meanwhile every other default Left-wing state agency works double time to make sure the common man has as little beach rights as possible, but their rich cronies get whatever they need. Disgusting!!!
I do believe there is an unused h hiding in dostacos's computer somewhere.
Actually it's a good comparison. They are about as good at planning anything else useful as they are at planning oil use.
The only thing career politicians are good at planning is their own reelections.
I do believe you are correct. LOL.
If you think you "own" your property, try not paying tribute to the dozens of "political entities" and have been given the power to tax that property–Feds, counties, States, cities, school districts, "fire protection" districts, water resource districts, junior college districts, hospital districts, etc. You'll soon see just how far your "ownership" lasts.
We don't have any property rights when it comes to land. There is only the illusion of them when we are forced to pay the real owners of the land yearly rent – you know- property tax. Even then, there is no leasing rights transferred to you, still you must ask for more permission to do anything on :your: land. How about that building permission slips, destruction permission slips and, oh yeah, endless zooooooning.
I ask again as I so often have –
Had Enough Yet?
Welcome to YOUR government……. they openly steal and squander…. how pathetic!
Hey proggies! How's that utilitarian argument working for you?
Or are you now going to post some irrelevant post about Palin?
The greedy greater good for the public was to be more taxes from Pfizer than what the homeowners were paying. Now they get nothing. All that grief for nothing. Did the politicians pay any price I wonder?
Yep, it's happening in CA, the land of fruity and nutty politicos. Just take a look at moonbeam and his recent move to allow illegals to get state funding for college. That state which used to be one of the finest and richest has certainly gone down hill since the sixties.
Occupancy lasts only as long as the reisident continues to pay tribute to the parasitic money grabbers..
Sad but, very true, EOD.
I recommend it be renamed either Souter Park or the Lost Liberty Park.
Amen!
I still feel an absolute red rage when I read about this story AGAIN!
Beside Roe V Wade, this was the worst decision the Supreme Court ever made.
So can't the former land owners file a lawsuit now? I mean the land is not being used for what was orginaly intended, what they are using it for now doesn't do what they argued the land would do when they took it. Its at least worth a shot, if anything just to bring this back into the spot light. Just a thought.
Say, whatever happened to the property in COURTESY SANDWICH SHOP, INC. v. PORT AUTHORITY, 375 U.S. 78 (1963)?
That's a landmark case.
The parcel in question became the World Trade Center. You've heard of it.
I agree, the former landowners should do their best to pin the city, state, fed, and pfizer to the wall….do we no longer have the ability to address such grievances?
Sorry Stan….meant to give you a thumbs up! Thumbs up are hard on an iPad.
Name it after the court…if it stays a dump; name it after the original landowners if they could win it back.
I don't know about anywhere else but here in Maine every few years they re evaluate your property so the State can borrow more money as valuation is increased.
Need further proof that our gov't is to be feared?
There would have been a great deal less damage had the planes flown into a sandwich shop.
The only people who should own property, according to them, is them, and they want to own everything (except the bills).
This finally proves it. Government really does know best.
This they will be happy to arrange.
No such thing as private property in the United States. If you don't believe that try not paying property taxes for awhile and see how that works out for you. If they can take it away from you, for any reason, eminent domain or late taxes, doesn't really matter, it never belonged to you in the first place. At best, you're just a United States Tenent. <Cynical Mode Off>
Except Justice Kennedy, a Reagan appointee.
Here is my house that you did take
From me to you, this spell I make
Your houses, your homes
Your family, your friends
May they live in misery
That never ends.
I curse you all
May you rot in hell
To each of you
I send this spell
For the rest of your lives
I wish you ill
I send this now
By the power of will
And if that isn't enough, they can always have the local kollectiv, in the persona of the Homeowners Association, measure you grass height and start the fines when its 1/4 inch too high…
I'm with you on that…
It's further proof we need to make the government fear the people more…
I was up that way recently for my dad's funeral in Quaker Hill. Arriving a few hours early, I drove around Waterford and New London visiting old family sites. After all the years of hearing about Kelo, it finally dawned on me where exactly this was, as I drove by the closed Pfizer facility to look at my grandfather's long-shuttered lumberyard on the corner of Howard and Hamilton less than a mile north of there. I remember that neighborhood from years ago. All those people were uprooted just so Pfizer could build THERE? With all the property they could have had immediately for a song?
New London's been going downhill since the 1930s, and the downtown "renewal" from the 1970s just destroyed the old feel of the city I remember from childhood visits. Now, it has no more ambience than Celebration, Florida. It's scenic, yet artificial. The newsroom where Grampa took us for candy and comic books was replaced by some frou-frou bistro I wouldn't be caught DEAD in. The city fathers should have left things alone and waited for the pendulum to start swinging back on its own.
Miner & Alexander Lumber Co. looks better.
And as its said…
"As you will it, so mote it be…"
wheres the lawsuit…they forced people out of their homes…eminent domain…then they didnt use it…its outrageous…every one of the homeowners should be awarded 1 million dollars….you can do that to people and then just forget it happened…they should name the city and the developers and sue thier butts off…the constitution might allow for eminent domain…for a purpose…but this…it was a pipe dream…no city or county has any right to do this to people
Heck in South America, Gaia can sue you know, so Mother Earth has more rights than you do.
When healthcare is argued in front of the US Supreme Court the lawyers should remind the court that this is a model example of government not being able to keep it's promises. Since the promise can't be counted on the law doesn't work and should be totally struck down since unlike Kelo it's the whole country affected by this decision.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
One of the biggest, most important issues of our time. And one of the worst SCOTUS decisions ever.
native american indians are laughing their @$$es off at us………
They're not so easy on smart phone either.
Get used to it- not property rights but property-permissions.
First it as the Native Americans, Now it's our time to be scr*w*d by the government out of our land.
Amen to that
Yep, and they saw this place as the best place to allow dumping post-Irene. I wonder how many EPA and other regs the local gov't filed for this place to become a dump…??? Exactly….NONE!!!
The true face of leftism revelead
I know this area well. Some of those people had been in their homes for generations and this was a disgrace.
And the Supreme Court Justice who turned this case: Kennedy. I would petition him with this travesty. Maybe he can get together with Roberts and re-open this thing. Obviously a mistake was made. If not, If a future conservative has the White House, and GOP members control the Senate (nuclear option) I suggest the SCOTUS be stacked with 3 more conservative Justices.
When the Constitution was written, the writers chose they're language carefully. SCOTUS needs to know it is not allowed to change even individual words w/out an amendment. In this case they changed public USE to public GOOD (who would define good?). Just like it is freedom OF religion, not FROM religion.
I'm just waiting for round two. Some commie lib will remind the EPA that the decomposition of wood results in the release of CO2 and methyl alcohol. Then the site will get a grant from the feds to "clean it up" for fear of climate change. Let's forget the possibility of some "endangered insects being found in the debris. Wanna buy my shovel factory?
Eminent Domain laws are being abused, to say the least. Either disband the law or make an addendum that if private businesses and a greedy local Govts want to take over an area to make money, then they have to pay the private Citizen owners of property FIVE times what it's worth! I'm tired of seeing 80 year old tax paying Americans forced out of the only home they've known. Make them rich and I might be ok with it.
Obama has spent 4 Trillion of our tax dollars in 2 years, on marxism! I'd rather that money, our tax dollars, go to good Americans. Hey Govt officials and your greedy buddies- Stop hurting Americans and America. PAY THEM or back off!
They damned near went broke on the first lawsuit. They most likely can't afford, to again, take up the gauntlet monetarily to pay for such a suit. I'm sure though that another corporate entity will beg=come interested when and if the economy restarts and that will end any and all thoughts of restoring, to those that lost so much,their rightful property!
Rolly
Bottom line, good or bad use of the Property itself irregardless – underneath remains the fact that KELO is a FOUNDATIONAL SUPPORT of FEUDALISM.
BE YE WELL INFORMED – ALL ARGUMENTS MUST BE ANCHORED ON THE FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL STANCE of PROPERTY RIGHTS for the ORDINARY CITIZENS is a FOUNDATIONAL SUPPORT of FREEDOM of the kind that is one of THREE (FOUR) PILLARS of the American Constitution, of the AMERICA as created by the FOUNDING FATHERS – the WORLD they created as an ESCAPE from EUROPEAN AND ASIAN FEUDALISTIC SOCIETIES.
NOTHING can change KELO from being a FEUDALISTIC Pillar. If the land had happened to achieve the greatest of human goals, it was still STOLEN, FIRST, the way that Jezebel ROBBED a certain vineyard from an ordinary man and gave it to her husband, King Ahab. KELO represents STOLEN property.
HAILEY BARBOUR is ONE of the Several RINOS who subsequently PROUDLY AND ARROGANTLY used it.
Samuel Adams: Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.
Even the Supreme Court thinks Marxism is good. Kelo is unconstitutional but perfectly Marxist.
What are property rights?
RESTITUTION TO THOSE FAMILIES IS THE ONLY WAY TO BREAK THE CURSE ON THAT ENTIRE COMMUNITY!
A MANY A COMMUNITY the last 10 yrs have taken a hard look at their past, and the consequences since a certain event in their local culture that marks a shame of infamy never dealt with since – and community members of today on EVERY level, Spiritual, Secular, Political, Business, Family Life, everything – have come together and made an investigation, and found Living Descendents of those wronged and mad Sincere Apologies, Repentance, asked Forgiveness, PROVIDED WHAT RESTITUTION AS THEY WERE ABLE, and honored those that were wronged, and acknowledged a restoration of RIGHT REPUTATION in regard to the event. Then all prayed together to give and receive all Forgiveness and Repentance, and to break the CURSE on the Land and Community and Nation for those Wrongful Deeds.
One that I witnessed was in regard to The Trail of Tears of the Indian Tribes sent from Tennessee to Oklahoma in a blizzard without food or adequate provisions and clothing and shelter.
Another was of a community that all parts of the community worked together to FRAME AA ALLEN as a drunk driver, after they colluded to spike his MILK in a cafe, then arrest him as a drunk driver. The community began to recognize that a Curse was working in the community, they hired independent investigators to search out the matter and found it began with that FALSE CONVICTION by adults of the community WHO KNEW THE TRUTH – and they then investigated the matter of his ALLEGED Drunk Driving, and the motives of those various parts of the community whose OFFICIALS colluded together to frame him, and presented a report to the Community, to the Town Council – who helped order the investigation, the Religious, and Secular, and Police – ALL TOGETHER.
And the Community then found the Descendents of AA Allen and did a COUPLE of Public APOLOGY AND RESTITUTION Ceremonies, confessing the sins of the Community towards him, before local and also widespread general uninvolved persons to witness the Ceremony.
It was a healing time for the individuals and I believe the Blessings that were invoked, the CURSES that were broken must surely have been felt in those communities.
KELO did INTERNATIONAL DAMAGE, as well as NATIONAL – and RESTITUTION is required.
But just think of all the high-paying green jobs, Dav.
Don't you read Krugman?
This is the Broken Window theory writ large, man!
Now, hand me a shovel, and let's get to work – we have an economy to reinvigorate, and a planet to save!
This is what Marxism is all about. Elites determining what they think is best, but when it fails there's no redress or accountability to those who paid the price.
Someone should dump tons of garbage in Justice David Souter's yard in NH to show him what it feels like. He wrote the majority opinion in Kelo. He kicked people out of their multi-generational homes. Now its a dump. It was, like Roe, an UNCONSTITUTIONAL ruling. PERIOD. Shame on Souter and Kennedy (both Rep picks) thats what RINO's get you!!!
Many rank and file lefties oppose the use of Imminent Domain for the reason given in the Kelo case. They don't know that it was the lefies on the SCOTUS who sided with the city and the developer against the land owner.
Something should be done about those judges who voted for this crime.
Doesn't it drive you crazy? I am going to start using a stylus.
There is another lesson from Kelo.
Look to the Justices of the dissent, who were the REAL champion of the little guy, versus those of the majority, who voted for big money, politically connected special interests.
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