KELO and Grand Terrace...

The Grand Terrace City Council Has NOT RULED OUT THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN in GRAND TERRACE. UNTIL the CITY COUNCIL and CITY MANAGER are PROHIBITED FROM THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN FOR PRIVATE USE YOUR HOUSE AND BUSINESS IS NOT SAFE IN GRAND TERRACE.

Original Message -----
From: Christina Walsh
To: IJ Distribution
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 1:17 PM
Subject: ACT NOW: Keep Susette Kelo and Her Neighbors In Their Homes!


Friends:

Today, May 31, is the deadline for Susette Kelo and her neighbors to accept the City of New London's offers for their homes. TheDay.com, the website of The Day, New London, Connecticut's local newspaper, is currently hosting a poll entitled, "Should Fort Trumbull Plaintiffs Accept City's Offer?" The text of the poll reads as follows:

The city of New London has made monetary settlement offers with the six parties whose Fort Trumbull properties were taken by eminent domain. Since the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the city in the eminent domain case, the former property owners have remained in possession of the properties while the city owns them. If those former property owners do not accept the settlement by today's deadline, the city will revoke its “offer to forgive past-due real estate taxes, claims for use and occupancy and claims to collect rent from third parties.” Should Fort Trumbull Plaintiffs Accept City's Offer?

Let the City know that America's property owners won't stand for the unholy alliance between tax-hungry governments and land-hungry developers in New London or anywhere else! Go to http://www.theday.com/, and scroll a quarter of the way down; the poll is to the right from the center of the page. Stand up for Susette Kelo and VOTE NO!

Also, send an e-mail to Governor M. Jodi Rell urging her to intervene on behalf of Susette and her neighbors, as the Hartford-Courant editorial below calls for. She has the power to save the Fort Trumbull homes, and has said before that she is in favor of preserving the homes and letting the development go on around them. You can send an e-mail to the Governor through this link: https://action.popuvox.com/default.aspx?actionID=268.

Together, we can help keep Susette Kelo and her neighbors in their homes, where they belong!

Best,

Christina Walsh
Assistant Castle Coalition Coordinator
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9320
www.ij.org
www.castlecoalition.org

P.S. Help the Castle Coalition grow! Forward this message to your friends. They can sign-up here: http://www.castlecoalition.org/join/index.html.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-evictionlooms.artmay30,0,2626575.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials

The Hartford Courant
Stop Shameful Eviction Plan
May 30, 2006
Gov. M. Jodi Rell expressed the views of many disappointed property owners when she criticized the General Assembly for being "largely silent on the overall issue of eminent domain."

After much justifiable Sturm und Drang about Connecticut's law that allows private land to be seized for private use, the legislature did nothing to change it. The status quo pretty much gives municipalities carte blanche to take a person's property if they think someone else will pay more taxes on it.

A flurry of good ideas emerged during a special legislative session to fix the law. It was called after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, in a 5-4 decision, the city of New London's right to condemn the homes of working families in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. The homes were to be razed for a speculative private development project to complement Pfizer's global research and development presence and a state-subsidized remake of the waterfront.

Several displaced residents who brought the lawsuit have steadfastly refused to leave. They have garnered national bipartisan sympathy, including Gov. Rell's.

They should be permitted to stay. Some of the residents have lived in that neighborhood for a lifetime. The city's attempts to put a price on that history misses the point. They don't want money. They want their homes.

Despite Mrs. Rell's plea to preserve the homes and let the partially state-sponsored development go on around them, the residents face a May 31 eviction deadline.

The New London City Council has ignored reasonable compromise, including the residents' willingness to move their homes to a neighborhood site that wouldn't interfere with the city's plans.

If the holdouts do not agree to terms for vacating their properties by the deadline, they will face nearly $1 million in penalties and lose their homes to boot.

Mrs. Rell must step in and stop this from happening. She should use her power to insist that the development plan be revised to include the remaining homes. The state's heavy investment in Fort Trumbull, its museum and the river walk give her the clout to insist on changes in the plans forged during the Rowland administration.

She alone can prevent this mistake from compounding.

What an image for Connecticut - to be a national example of how not to treat homeowners.