Politician Archive

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Tanooshmas - Master Droid Engineer and Mayor of Nexus
Tunder Bird - Master Musician
Tanooshpa - Master Combat Medic

All happily living in the "free" city of Nexus in the Corellian riverlands on Gorath

I understand houses not destroying but dear god! BER 3 harvesters?! Those need to DIE! Got a few outside (thank gawd)my city smoking away, blocking houses etc. Really irritating!

with the new house pack up option coming in a later publish. why not, once the maintainance is gone, make the house automatically get packed up and put in the users datapad. things are left exactly how they were. an email get sent to the character (like it does now) saying the maintainance is empty and if you do not pay soon, the house will be packed up and put in your data pad. let it burn a hole in there datapad, not our cities!

This seems like a easy fix if you ask me. Also I do not agree with the deducting funds from the bank. SOE is doing the work for the player. If someone was to forget to pay on their house, who's fault should that be? In the end, it only hurts the mayor of their city.

my .02

IGN: Irowega - Retired Imperial Munitions Trader (Elder 12pt R.I.S. Armorsmith)
IGN: Sihyn - Dark Jedi Elder

You better have another go at what Eminent Domain is. New laws passed by the Supreme Court allow a city to only need prove that they will gain a tax benefit and they can take the land. Be it for public use or for selling back to a Developer..even with a TIF envolved. We all know how well those commissions give out the value of the land as well don't we. It is never what the land is truely worth, and no where near what it will be worth.

Comdemnation is how many cities are taking out perfectly valid land and selling it for redevelopment..not into a park, but rather into an apartment complex or mall. After all....both are to the public benefit. At least that is how the cities and now the Supreme Court have twisted it.

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Kelo vs. New London (125 S. Ct. 2655), a 5-4 Supreme Court majority sided with the Connecticut city, whichargued that its move to condemn homes for a private developer's hotel/office/condo projectwas a valid public use for which eminent domain was justified.

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Here is the article from the Washington Post from back in June of this year.

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Justices Affirm Property Seizures 5-4 Ruling Backs Forced Sales for Private Development

By Charles Lane Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 24, 2005; A01

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed.

The 5 to 4 ruling provided the strong affirmation that state and local governments had sought for their increasing use of eminent domain for urban revitalization, especially in the Northeast, where many city centers have decayed and the suburban land supply is dwindling.

Opponents, including property-rights activists and advocates for elderly and low-income urban residents, argued that forcibly shifting land from one private owner to another, even with fair compensation, violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the taking of property by government except for "public use."

But Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, cited cases in which the court has interpreted "public use" to include not only such traditional projects as bridges or highways but also slum clearance and land redistribution. He concluded that a "public purpose" such as creating jobs in a depressed city can also satisfy the Fifth Amendment.

The court should not "second-guess" local governments, Stevens added, noting that "[p]romoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government."

Stevens's opinion provoked a strongly worded dissent from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote that the ruling favors the most powerful and influential in society and leaves small property owners little recourse. Now, she wrote, the "specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who serves as president of the National League of Cities, issued a statement praising the court for upholding "one of the most powerful tools city officials have to rejuvenate their neighborhoods."

In addition to its national repercussions, the court's decision removed a possible obstacle to the District's plans to build a baseball stadium along the Anacostia River waterfront and to redevelop the Skyland Shopping Center in Southeast -- a project Williams said could generate 300 jobs and $3.3 million in tax revenue.

A number of property owners in those areas had hoped the court ruling would help them resist the city's exercise of eminent domain. But David A. Fuss, an attorney for several of them, acknowledged that the court's ruling "is going to have a major impact."

The redevelopment program at issue in yesterday's case -- the plan of the Connecticut city of New London to turn 90 acres of waterfront land into office buildings, upscale housing, a marina and other facilities near a $300 million research center being built by pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer -- was also expected to generate hundreds of jobs and, city officials say, $680,000 in property tax revenue.

New London, with a population of about 24,000, is reeling from the 1996 closing of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which had employed more than 1,500 people.

But owners of 15 homes on 1.54 acres of the proposed site had refused to go. One of them, Susette Kelo, had extensively remodeled her home and wanted to stay for its view of the water. Another, Wilhelmina Dery, was born in her house in 1918 and has lived there her entire life.

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the city's plan, so the homeowners, represented by lawyers from the libertarian Institute for Justice, appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to the institute, the New London plan, which the City Council approved in 2000, is typical of "eminent domain abuse," which has spawned more than 10,000 threatened or filed condemnations involving a transfer of property from one private party to another in 41 states between 1998 and 2002.

Scott Bullock, a lawyer for the institute, said that the only recourse for property owners facing condemnation under eminent domain would be to sue in state court based on the property rights provisions of each state's constitution.

New London City Manager Richard M. Brown said he was "very pleased" by the court's decision. He said the city hopes to restart its redevelopment plan, which has lost money so far, partly because of the litigation.

In the disputed neighborhood, known as Fort Trumbull, most residents sold out and their homes were demolished. The site is now a flat expanse of dusty, rock-strewn soil dotted by the few remaining houses. Signs advertising the development site are withered and torn; builders who once considered projects have moved on, deterred by the controversy.

Stevens was joined in the majority by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Kennedy's vote was something of a surprise because he had expressed strong sympathy for property-rights claims in past cases. But in a brief concurring opinion he explained that the New London plan showed no sign of improper favoritism toward any one private developer.

O'Connor was joined in her dissent by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They wrote that the majority had tilted in favor of those with "disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

And in a separate dissent, Thomas sounded a rare note of agreement with liberal groups such as the NAACP, which had sided with the property owners in the case.

He protested that urban renewal has historically resulted in displacement of minorities, the elderly and the poor.

"Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court's decision will be to exacerbate these effects," he wrote.

The case is Kelo v. City of New London , No. 04-108.

Staff writer Kirstin Downey contributed to this report.

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OKay man you're right. The words usually and very few is misinformation and narrow...

Thanks for correcting me.

Sorry if I come of as a rough on this topic. It hits a bit close to home on an issue I deal with 8-10 hours a day for the last8 years. It's never set right with me, and Isee cities abuse that power far beyond what it was intended for. I can give many examples of cities abusing their rights, and city lawyersendorsing such actions. Sadly, with the supreme court ruling...they have a legal leg to stand on now and the average joe has no hope of keeping his home of 20 years if the city decides the land would better suit their pocket book if it was a mall. With more aggresive developers and developers making more an dmore use of Tax breaks and grants from those same cities, the cities develope a personal biased stance on the entire thing as well. Nothing about that is "fair" and nothign about it is what the forefathers invisioned when they wrote all that out.

and no..I'm not implying that they take it for free, but I would say the best way to describe it would be taking candy from a baby and tossing them the empty wrapper, some lint and a couple pennies for the trouble.

Now not all cities are this way, but many are and most of the large cities are. We don't own our homes..even after the mortgage is paid...the city/county can take it at a whim....is there really any amount of money they can pay that would be "fair" for tearing your home down to place "another parking lot" in town?