to Senator Tom Torlakson, Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister outlines the reasons why the City of Concord opposes SCA 15, the Homeowner and Property Protection Act that proposes a California State Constitutional Amendment, which would prohibit municipalities from taking private property of one citizen and giving it to another private entity via eminent domain.
SCA 15 follows the recent Kelo decision of the U. S. Supreme Court that ruled that the United States Constitution does not prevent the transfer of property, seized through eminent domain, to private entities for private profit. The Kelo case has caused a critical uproar across the country and political spectrum (e.g., the NAACP and AARP presented Amicus briefs for the defendents).
See my response to the Mayor and Council in the comment section. Post your thoughts in the comment section.
At the same time, Sen Torlakson proposes to gut any restrictions of eminent domain abuse with his SCA 12. And his SB 521 would allow redevelopment agencies to declare as “blighted” any property within 1/4 mile of a BART station for lack of high-density housing.
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August 16, 2005
Dear Madam Mayor and Council,
Thank you for your letter of August 5, 2005 explaining your decision to oppose SCA 15, the Homeowners and Property Protection Act.
I respectfully disagree with your position for the following reasons:
1. As a matter of basic principle, it is unfortunate that Council’s and California’s pro-redevelopment lobbyist community’s opposition to SCA 15 is based on protecting and expanding government power to more easily prosecute redevelopment projects via the threat of eminent domain, at the expense of protecting the rights of the people, specifically (once constitutional) property rights.
SCA 15, if passed by the voters of California, would restore these constitutional protections.
2. The issue is not pro or con redevelopment, but about the rights of willing buyers and willing sellers to freely negotiate a mutually agreeable price for an object, property, service, or business. Anything else is tantamount to state-sanctioned robbery.
3.There is no proof that successful redevelopment requires eminent domain, or its threat, to be successful. Would it be harder? Sure. But also fairer; and would decrease opportunity for mischief.
4. Your assertion that California’s laws are stricter than Connecticut’s is absurd. California’s laws concerning findings of blight are quite malleable and, if SB 521 (Redevelopment and Transit Villages) is any indication, getting worse. In California there are hundreds of questionable examples of eminent domain for private gain, which U.S. District Court Judge, Stephen Wilson, described in 2001 as “naked transfer of property from one private party to another.”
5. You assert that eminent domain is seldom used. But your own examples (Parking Structure and Legacy Apartment) each involved two cases of eminent domain.
That sounds like often, not seldom. Using the facts you present, one could just as easily claim that 100% of recent redevelopment projects involved takings by eminent domain.
Please remember that armed robbers seldom use the gun they point at unwilling, powerless victims. The perceived threat itself is coercive.
6. You uncritically reference, what appear to me as, “talking points” cribbed from the pro-redevelopment lobby. In fact, your assertion that SCA 15 is “a proposal in search of a problem” is a direct quote of John Shirey, the executive director of the California Redevelopment Agency (RDA). Dan Walters documents this clearly in the Sacramento Bee. http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/walters/story/13276383p-14118689c.html
Furthermore, the pro-redevelopment lobby claims that “These Measures (i.e. SCA 15) kill affordable housing and jobs,” make it sound as if redevelopment can create the proverbial “free lunch.” Yet, you ignore the fact that they are tax-payer subsidized housing units and tax-payer subsidized jobs whose true financial outcome is statewide redevelopment debt that approaches $60 billion dollars, and where statewide redevelopment agencies claim 10 percent of California’s property tax revenue, ($2.8 billion dollars in 2003); resources that might be better used for improving City services.
Meanwhile developers, builders, and bond-debt sellers gain, while the taxpayers foot the bill for the sake of redevelopment.
7. The characterization by city staff and the redevelopment community that SCA 15 is a “knee jerk reaction” to the Kelo case and therefore not worthy of consideration is condescending, self serving, and misinformed, especially considering the widespread outrage from across the political spectrum in reaction to the Kelo decsion.
8. I disagree with the administrative manner in which such a critical position of Council was reached, without benefit of public comment, without public hearing, or without a public vote of council; so each representative could state, on record, as to his or her position concerning the protection of every Concord resident’s property rights. I therefore urge more open discussion and transparency.
9. And finally, when citizens’ rights to property is no longer secure, then they are no longer a free people, and the government, no matter how well intentioned, has become a tyrant.
For these reasons, I request that you
a) reconsider your position and support SCA 15
and
b) allow for a Brown Act compliant public hearing and comment on this matter, followed by a public vote of the council.
Respectfully yours,
Bill Gram-Reefer
Concord, CA 94520