Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Does the city council have money to burn?
Man, the city council was handing out money like tic-tacs at a halitosis support group last night! I am groaning (inwardly) as I write that joke. First with the IMAX (which I'll post about tomorrow), and then this. No wonder that liquor store owner didn't show up. He's probably getting a sweet deal. Do you think he could sell his crappy store for a million bucks in a legitimate sale? I doubt it. I think this is a weird use of eminent domain. It's supposed to be used to seize land needed for a public project (like a road), not just to eliminate a business the city council doesn't like. On the plus side, the Bee printed a fun map where you can look at the liquor stores in your neighborhood and see how much crime has occurred around them. A couple crimes were committed around Maks, but maybe they are just talking about how the food at L&L Hawaiian BBQ is illegally delicious. Smiller, you will not be surprised to see that some crimes happened near the Save-Rite. You might be surprised that prostitution wasn't one of them.
I read about the Imax bailout and pushed the very idea out of my head. WTF? The place ain't making money. I say, let nature take her course and let the place close. Not that I'd want anything to happen to that building. Keep that. If the city has decided to start saving failing businesses, I can think of many more worthy places they ought to prop up. How did they decide which places are worthy of subsidies? As for the liquor store imminent domaining, it seems like a bad precedent, but then, I don't live there.
ReplyDeleteEd
Wow, people who make maps like that are REALLY cool.
ReplyDeletegbomb
i think the city can use its eminent domain power as long as it is for a public use. and i'm pretty sure public use is interpreted fairly broadly so it wouldn't just have to be a road. i think it can be used to take private property from one party and then the city can sell the property to another private party for a sanctioned project (housing, a mall, etc.) the city has to pay the original owner the fair market value of the property...which is usually below what the original owner would have sold it for, or else the city wouldn't have to get involved to force the sale.
ReplyDeletei have mixed feelings about eminent domain that i won't bore anyone with.
-greg
Liquor stores can be magnets for crime, yes, but then there's my favorite combo -- a liquor store that's adjacent to a bar, preferably one that's open 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. That duo's always a good one-two punch.
ReplyDeleteEminent domain is a big ol' mixed bag to say the least, but when the owners of the store's liquor licenses don't bother to publicly object to getting the heave-ho, then it's pretty evident they know the whole neighborhood wants them gone, and likely for good reason.
I know that the city can use eminent domain in this way, and that it's legal, but I've read a few articles that have alerted me to the fact that the way cities use it is shifting away from big public projects to big private projects. Like that case that went to the supreme court in connecticut (the court voted against the homeowners, 5-4) where the city wanted to build a giant mall and called the housing that was standing in the way blighted, even though it was just normal, not fancy, houses that people wanted to stay in. And there's no guarantee the mall won't fail or that it will make money for the city. I don't like that use of the law.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that this is crap.
ReplyDeleteA lesson in, how to lie with statistics
Lets see the same map but with churches.
Oh, does god cause crime?
PS The city council through Sacbike is actually going to pay people 25 bucks a meeting to tell them about biking in Sac. You will be a council to them... For info Email me
couchdive at that gmale thing baby
If the Sacramento city fathers have anything else they'd like to bulldoze, they better get on it, because the governmental power of eminent domain may get reigned in by state and federal laws in coming years, pretty much as a backlash against Kelo v. New London (the case in Connecticut). Like you said, the spirit if not the letter of the law over the years was for things like public works projects, building highways or eliminating blight in favor of urban renewal projects. But by my understanding it was that latter one that sort of turned the corner into eminent domain getting used as a governmental tool by private developers for things like shopping centers (and not even in "blighted" areas, and not even as a last resort.
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