Barstow should restrict eminent domain
Once again, the City of Barstow’s Redevelopment Agency is mulling over the guidelines of its eminent domain authority, and once again, we are asking the city to confine its authority to public uses.
The city seeks to reinstate its ability to use eminent domain along East Main Street near the Marine Corps Logistics Base. Its authority to use eminent domain in this area expired in 2008.
City officials say their proposal would have “minimal impact” to property owners in the area, which is a rather amusing contradiction to the point of eminent domain. Yes, we’re claiming the authority to force you to sell us your property, but don’t worry, it will have minimal impact. Is that a claim that should be taken seriously?
Furthermore, city officials shamelessly toss out the discredited claim that eminent domain is used to eliminate “blight” in the community. After years of eminent domain abuse, there is a preponderance of evidence that the term “blight” in reality has no meaning. Government can — and has— declared anything they want to seize as blighted: parks, homes, undeveloped land, entire neighborhoods. “Blight” is a meaningless word.
Our concern is the abuse of eminent domain to force transfer property from one private entity to another. This is an abuse of the Fifth Amendment that has unfortunately been enshrined as acceptable thanks to the Supreme Court’s Kelo vs. City of New London decision in 2005. The Fifth Amendment states that eminent domain can be invoked for projects of “public use,” meaning schools, roads, et cetera. Sadly, this definition has become corrupted to mean “public good,” which means whatever government wants it to mean. Property has been taken by governments to build malls, condos, and other private developments.
However, unlike public use projects, the government can’t actually force these private projects to be completed. The proposed redevelopment that prompted the Kelo lawsuit did not actually happen. Homes have been taken and replaced with nothing. Pfizer, the company for whom the city engaged in eminent domain abuse, just announced it’s leaving New London.
The good news is that the City of Barstow’s eminent domain guidelines prohibit the taking of homes to be used in this fashion. However, it does still permit the use of eminent domain to take commercial and industrial land and then turn around and sell it to somebody else to develop.
We encourage the city to revise its eminent domain guidelines to guarantee that the city will respect property rights and only invoke its authority in such situations of actual “public use.”
