Eminent Domaine

To have and to hold?

What does Harvey Davis of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Susette Kelo of New London, Connecticut have in common? Eminent Domain.

In 1997, Susette Kelo, a forty year old nurse had saved enough money to buy her own home, an older cottage, in a blue collar area known as Fort Trumbull, in New London, Connecticut overlooking the seacoast. The house needed a lot of repairs, painting and so forth, but she didn't care. She painted it pink [see "Little Pink House" by Jeff Benedict] and moved in. Several months later the New London Developement Corporation [NLDC] sought to buy her, along with her neighbor's, property in an effort to locate the new global research and developement headquarters of Pfizer, Inc., the world's largest pharmaceutical company, in that area. Susette and some of her neighbors refused to sell and on the day before Thanksgiving they found condemnation papers affixed to their front doors [Eminent Domain] and they had ninety days to move out.
Susette and her friends fought back and after losing all appeals in the City of New London and with the help of the "Institute for Justice" in Washington, D.C. they filed a suit against the NLDC, a case that would eventually end up being decided by the Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
On June 23, 2005, about eight years after she bought her house and painted it pink, Susette Kelo and her neighbors lost their last appeal by a vote of five to four in the Supreme Court but even though her case was lost she was awarded a more adequate settlement which included the moving of that little pink house to another location to be used as a museum. It was torn down, board by board, and re-assembled on another lot. As for Susette Kelo, she bought a house on the other side of the river, situated on a small hill overlooking the area where her former home once stood. In 2008, when the book was written, nothing had been built on any of those vacant lots. Pfiser, Inc. had located their headquarters elsewhere.

In 1975 Harvey Davis bought an abandoned train depot from the railroad and established his family owned automotive repair shop. He has been there ever since. In anticipation of the time when he would be forced to move he bought, in 2006, land a few miles away but now finds himself facing neighbohood opposition. They don't want the property rezoned for commercial use. The City of Winston-Salem has offered to pay Mr. Davis almost seven hundred thousand dollars plus moving expense but he doesn't think that is a fair value for his property and unless he can get his other property rezoned he has no place to go.
According to Fox News, City Officials of Winston-Salem claim they need the property in order to secure federal funding for a high speed rail project. NEWS FLASH! Presaident Obama has doggedly insisted on giving away more taxpayer money under the guise of building a high speed rail line while AMTRACK has yet to turn a profit. After being turned down by several states, it appears that he has found a taker in Winston-Salem, N.C..
Late last year the officials of Winston-Salem, having reached no compromise with Mr. Davis, filed for Eminent Domain. This is an on-going case and in many ways the Davis case is completely different from Kelo's Supreme Court battle but both appear to be the taking of private property for public use without adequate compensation. If it, too, goes to the Supreme Court it will probably be years before any decision will become final. Just as Kelo was, is it any wonder that Harvey Davis feel that he is being railroaded by the city.

The big news for the past few days has been, and will continue for a long time, the earthquake off the coast of Japan with the resulting Tsunami. That brought on non-stop coverage on television almost as though the rest of the world was standing still. Hopefully everything will be getting back to normal, if that will ever be possible, in a few weeks. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned, - William