The state legislature has to rewrite the law to straighten this out. Who will devote time and capital to building a business in California if this type of abuse is a real possibility? People invest in America because it has been a stable enviornment without this sort of arbitrary predation from government.
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Land Seized for Animal Shelter May Be Sold to Developer-Donor

By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer (Los Angeles Times)

January 14, 2006

A year after Los Angeles seized three acres from a private company to construct a public building, a city councilman wants to sell the land to another private firm for a commercial development.

Both companies are furniture manufacturers. But executives with the company that would buy the land have political connections and have made $17,600 in campaign contributions to key city leaders.

Critics of the proposal say it's wrong for the city to use its power of eminent domain to take property from one business for a public purpose and then sell it to another business. (read more)

http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-deal14jan14...oll=ktla-news-1

This is why it is so important to have "origionalists" on the high court. Last years horrible ruling allows for more of this tyranny, where one's private property does not REALLY belong to him/her.

If investors have to consider this a possibility and part of the cost of doing business in California then why bother?


Investment money from all over the world flows into to USA because it is safe here and not so encumbered with regualtions and fees. How do foreign investors feel about this sort of stunt knowing they are "outsiders" who don't know the local officials.

Curiously, GW Bush used the idea of immenent domain to sieze land for the Ranger's stadium from business owner who refused to sell ... not just the land that the stadium would be built on, but also the immediate surrounding area, whose property values shot way up after the stadium was completed...

Anyway, this case smells of some illegal behaviour and back door dealing. I've talked to CA busniessmen who have personally done 'favors' for CA politicians - R + D alike, to stay in their good graces. Its not limited to CA either.

Old Arlington Stadium or the New Ballpark? Just curious because that is my favorite team and I used to live about 1/2 mile away from the stadium in Arlington.

Anyway Jerry Jones is doing the same thing again to build the Cowboys new stadium across the parking lot from the Ballpark in Arlington.

Sorry that is a dumb question. It is obviously the Ballpark.

Yup. After a few years, some of the landowners won a suit to make bush pay them the real value of their property, but thats not exactly what they had in mind when they didn't want to sell....

Doing favors is part of doing business when you get big enough but the LA example smacks of outright corruption, taking away the property of a furniture business to give it to another furniture business and donations of cash to city officials. It makes it very simple for voters to connect the dots and see the wrong done with the law as it is written. There's an opportunity to push through new legislation with this example as the spearhead. Unfortunately more geese will have to be plucked before people begin to squack.

Well, helllluuuuuuu! I used to live at UT-Arlington housing in the mid 80's.....on West Street.

LBJ had the land condemned next to his ranch/farm so he could build his museum. An old couple on their homestead lived there and to take whatever $$ they were offered.

Heard last week(?) that emminent domain was used in Florida to take away some more beachfront property from another old couple who'd lived there for 60+ years to be used for commercial purposes and increase tax revenue for the city/town.

God forgive us, and please HELP us change the d.a.m.n.e.d law and shoot the horse it rode in on and the people who wrote it.

Haha. I lived around 360 @ Ave K. Officially in Grand Prairie but I could just walk across 360 into Arlington.

Yup ... LBJ did the same thing G.W. Bush did. Condemned land - the whole bit. But then Bush actually condemned the land surrounding the stadium as well! hows that for gall!

I agrtee about immenent domain - it give a lot of power to the gov't that shouldn't be there - and will often get used for corrupt poirposes. (insert picture of a couple of dolphins smoking weed and sporting tattoos taking a land deed from the gov't....)

Of course, as you pointed out re: LBJ (may his rotten soul rest in peace) .... the government doesn't NEED it ....

Well, I guess we were a little more far apart than I had originally thot. I guess shoulduv taken the hint from the word "stadium." My sister used to live close to it.

I hung pretty close to Cooper and Lincoln Square area. Wasn't 360 at the end of Cooper, where the big mall is?

360 is the freeway that connects I-20 and I-30 to DFW airport. It runs parrallel to Cooper about 2 miles to the east.