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Views of the News © 2016 all rights reserved
Friday, February 12, 2016
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Photo © RiteOn LLC and Chuck MacNab
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Growltiger disagrees with Donald Trump on eminent domain. Growltiger detests the Supreme Court's Kelo decision and believes eminent domain should be used only to build schools, highways, hospitals, utilities and/or necessary government buildings; never for the transfer of one citizen's property to another citizen no matter how remunerative the tax benefits are to the country, city, county or state.
During the ABC debate, former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, hammered businessman Donald Trump on the issue of eminent domain. While one can argue whether the taking of one citizen's property to benefit another citizen is ethical, one hardly can argue that it is not hypocrisy for Governor Bush to attack Mr. Trump for doing exactly what his brother, former president George W. Bush, did in Texas.
In the early 1990's, George W. Bush "successfully lobbied the government to use eminent domain in order to acquire land to build a parking lot for a baseball stadium. While the parking lot was officially publicly owned, in reality, Mr. Bush had complete control over it and was only required to pay a nominal rent of one dollar per year".(1)
Mr. Trump argued that in most cases of eminent domain, the property owner is paid at least fair market value and sometimes many times fair market value, and this obviously was true in the case of Jesse James Hardy, a disabled veteran, who was forced out of his home during Governor Bush's tenure so the State of Florida could establish an environmental reserve (2). Mr. Hardy received many times what his home was worth, but Mr. Hardy like Ms. Coking in the Trump case did not want to give up his property.
Nor did Governor Bush mention that recently a jury decision awarded Florida homeowners $19.2 million in a class action lawsuit over the cutting of over 66,000 healthy citrus trees in Palm Beach County which then Governor Bush ordered in response to a citrus blight that endangered the state's citrus growers' trees (3). Governor Bush can argue that he was acting on behalf of the citizens of Florida, but that argument does not stand in his brother's case.
With reference to Mr. Trump's attempt to use eminent domain against Vera Coking, the a synopsis of the story is as follows: In the 1970's, Bob Guccione bought the property next to Ms. Coking and offered her $1 million for her property. She declined and Guccione started building above and around her property, erecting what looked like a steel cage over and above her house. (See photo at Wikipedia). Guccione ran out of money in 1980 and construction stopped. Mr. Trump bought the property in 1993. Whether the steel framework was in place when Mr. Trump bought the adjacent property, GT does not know, but suspects it was. If so, Mr. Trump did Ms. Coking a favor by taking it down. Like Mr. Guccione, Mr. Trump tried to buy Ms. Coking's property, and as she did with Mr. Guccione, Ms. Coking refused. Mr. Trump tried to use eminent domain which Growltiger believes is wrong, and Ms. Coking prevailed. Two other properties that prevailed against eminent domain eventually sold for $2.1 million and $1.6 million. Mr. Trump accepted the state's decision. Years later, Ms. Coking's property was sold at auction for $530,000.00.
Growltiger continues to believe Mr. Trump or any other developer who uses eminent domain for personal profit is wrong. But she also believes that any federal, state or local government that participates or allows such takings is even more culpable and that any politician who tells half truths is worse than both.
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