Below is an article about Improper Management of the Proper use of Eminent Domain.
In Grand Terrace, the City Manager Threatens to Use Eminent Domain to "Encourage Land Owners to "Negotiate or be under Eminent Domain" sell their property to a City Manger Selected Developer.
Sure Eminent Domain was never used this way in Grand Terrace to the final stage. However, it was close... and if they thought they could survive the politics of it they would. So what we have in OUR CITY is an ATTITUDE they WANT TO USE EMINENT DOMAIN for ECONOMIC PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT, but they FEAR the POLITICAL RESULTS. I'd rather have a City that has a Policy and Attitude and Code that they WILL NOT USE EMINENT DOMAIN for ECONOMIC PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT.
10:00 PM PST on Monday, March 3, 2008
CASSIE MACDUFF It's a classic property owner's nightmare: Bulldozers arrive and shave off 14 feet from the front of your lot, while you protest that it's your property and they're trespassing. The government has seized your property without notifying you, without offering to buy your land and without exercising eminent domain.
This happened last summer to truck-yard owner Mike Lawson and several other property owners on Tippecanoe Avenue in San Bernardino near the former Norton Air Force Base. The Inland Valley Development Agency is widening Tippecanoe to accommodate trucks from warehouses that have sprung up in recent years.
Lawson moved his truck yard to the area from Redlands six years ago. At the time, the neighborhood was run-down and largely vacant, Lawson said. He had no inkling of the building boom to come. One day last summer, Lawson got a phone call from a Matich Corp. official saying his driveway would be blocked beginning the next Monday to install curbs and gutters. Lawson protested that he had not been notified and needed access for the tractor-trailers that use his yard daily. The Matich official seemed sympathetic and invited Lawson to company headquarters. But once there, Lawson said, company officials' attitude changed. They shouted him down and told him the work would begin regardless.
Matich Corp. President Stephen Matich didn't return my call seeking comment Monday. When the work began, Lawson said, his mailbox was knocked over and left on the ground, the driveway had to be graded and other damage fixed.
Worse, losing 14 feet from the front of his property has made it difficult for truck drivers to get into the yard because their trailers hang out into the street when they stop at the gate to use the security keypad.
IVDA executive Don Rogers and counsel Tim Sabo on Monday morning blamed the problem on an overzealous contractor and admitted work shouldn't have been done before the agency bought the land from the property owners.
City Engineer Robert Eisenbeisz said he hadn't heard about the blunder until now and IVDA officials should have kept city officials informed. The road-widening is on a city street.
The city allowed the IVDA to manage the project but relied on the agency to keep the city apprised of progress and problems. "We depend on IVDA to communicate these issues," Eisenbeisz said. "We're probably going to have to have good talk with them." The city has safeguards to make sure such mistakes don't happen on city projects, he said: Construction contracts aren't awarded until property has been acquired.
Lawson and his lawyers met with an IVDA lawyer Monday afternoon to discuss how the IVDA will rectify the situation. No settlement was reached, but the IVDA lawyer didn't balk at suggested remedies including moving the gate so trucks don't block the street while drivers press the keypad, lawyer Wilfrid C. Lemann said.
The blunder is an embarrassment for the IVDA, Sabo said, and the agency or its contractor will have to pay for the land and possibly other damages. IVDA should go further and review its policies to make sure nothing like this happens again. Cassie MacDuff can be reached at 909-806-3068 or cmacduff@PE.com
