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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19143
[Legal]
Date Posted:
1/2/2008
9:58:58 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 7,745
RSS: 16,872
Comments: 15
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Pa. Supreme Court Allows Property Seizure For Private School
Author: The Associated Press Source: First Amendment Center
Title: PA. SUPREME COURT ALLOWS PROPERTY SEIZURE FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL
A city agency acted legally when it seized a woman's home to help a religious group build a private school in a blighted Philadelphia neighborhood, the state Supreme Court ruled last week.
In a case pitting eminent domain against the separation of church and state, the state high court's ruling reversed a ruling by the lower Commonwealth Court, which had sided with homeowner Mary Smith.
"The principal or primary effect of the redevelopment plan ... is to eliminate blight in this particular neighborhood," Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Baldwin wrote for the majority.
A secondary effect could be the advancement of religion, but there is no evidence that is the primary goal, she wrote.
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Community Thoughts: There are 15 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| *headscratch* | Jan 3rd. at 2:43:53 am EST
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Cobalt (Indianapolis, Indiana) - Email Me - Web
I'm still not quite sure how upset to be about this.... if something like eminent domain can be legally justified at all, isn't objecting to this a little like shutting the door when the wolf is already in the house?
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| Urban Renewal? | Jan 2nd. at 6:35:35 pm EST
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
"The principal or primary effect of the redevelopment plan ... is to eliminate blight in this particular neighborhood," Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Baldwin wrote for the majority."
Regardless of Religion, the school is a private entity, performing a function for paying customers, and the home is the home of a private person, who'd be best able to judge Just Compensation. Granted, there are people whose removal will help combat blight, in particular neighborhoods, but this leaves question about the fate of other neighborhoods as yet undisclosed.
Property was taken for a rapid transit extension, in Boston, but sold to Northeastern University, to expand their parking, for the benefit of traffic patterns, and I haven't heard how the Greek Orthodox Church, which the property was taken from, has fared in its suit.
Arawn
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| Oh My, My... | Jan 2nd. at 5:01:55 pm EST
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Winddragon (anderson, South Carolina) - Email Me
The things I would bury in the night if they stole my land. If the neighborhood is a blight, then give them all 15 minutes to evacuate and then napalm it. Problem? Our gov't has killed and stolen many times, it just gets printed a little differently. Who's the enemy here? I need the land where the Crystal Cathedral sits to raise pigs. Shall I have it? Tax churches and gild the whole place.
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| Since When? | Jan 2nd. at 4:41:04 pm EST
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Gypsy (Zanesville, Ohio) - Email Me
Since when does the Catholic Church support the building of non-denominational schools? While they may call it non-denominational, the key factor here is the hands of the Catholic Church in the mix. I would have no issue had the houses that were to be torn down were non-livable and included a housing complex someplace in the mix. But even imminent domain does not give the right of any agency to randomly tear down just any house with no set plan.
There are options to help restore homes that need some work but are basically livable...there is a section of my very own street which is nothing but HUD homes rented out under section 8 HUD...based on income and they are nice new houses. Plans such as that one, done with thought and yes checking legal references can help to revitalize a less than desirable community. But taking that womans house for less than the value of her property is stealing in any form of mumbo jumbo that the courts decide to rule against her under.
But done in the manner this apparently was wreaks of a violation of the first amendment right. That woman under the right of religious freedoms has the right to say she doesn't want a Christian school built where her house used to be. Sadly however I have little faith the our government will do the right thing. Non-denominational does not mean public and it does not mean non-religious...Besides that even if they made it a private school owned by the Catholic church but not a Catholic school, who is to say that after a year they could not close down for the summer, change the signs and bring in Catholic religious curricula. Complete with nuns and paid teachers...
Aside from that note, a private school is going to do what for a blighted neighborhood except to provide an education for those who can afford it, which most people in a blighted neighborhood cannot do. Those who can afford it will most likely be from a non-blighted neighborhood without the need that is prevalent in this one. Take care of the needs rather than create new ones.
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| If The Neighborhood Is "Blighted" | Jan 2nd. at 4:07:19 pm EST
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
Then there must be some abandoned, boarded up houses in the neighborhood. If you are to condem a building for a private school, it should not be one which has a residence in active use. If the school is a religious private school the state has no right to participate in their activities and especially no right to take property for it.
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| Legal And Functional Remedies | Jan 2nd. at 1:17:18 pm EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
Kentucky sees far less abuse of eminent domain law than do many states, due to a simple twist of legal construction. Under their law, eminent domain compensation is based on the value of the property to the owner, not what some state chosen appraiser says it's worth. That in turn reflects intangible aspects of valuation, like family heritage, lifestyle disruption from moving, etc. In one case where legal action to seize a home for a school parking lot had been taken, a lawyer friend wrote a letter back offering to negotiate the value on behalf of the owners, a blind elderly couple who'd lived in the same location long enough to know how to find their way to a food market, church, and other nearby places, without assistance. The city found that it could locate the school parking lot elsewhere, rather than pay the secondary value of taking those functional life capabilities so difficult and costly to replace from the targets of that action.
In Kelo v New London, had I been Kelo, I'd have faced a severe ethical conflict. The courts in effect ruled that the only recourse that victim of legal abuse really had was to buy mercury, Muriatic acid, and PCB wastes. Filling a well with mercury and then acid to trash aquifiers with mercuric chloride, and burn one's house so as to convert PCB's to a stream of dioxin large enough to cross the river and hit Phizer plants on both sides of the Thames, might reach some of the responsible parties. In part those are local taxpayers who voted in the thugs enabling the larger mess. In part they're also not just people near local politics and businesses like Phizer or General Dynamics/Electric Boat, but the corporate stockholders in big pharma which relocated Phizer HQ to a Wall Street outpost in North Jersey, and of General Dynamics, and of the larger regulatory economic wherein the larger area is manipulated as part of both the military industrial complex, and tampering with Injun casino games as part of national public political policies.
One adequately skilled and pissed off victim can create a major HazMat site. It's very sick when our so-called justice system procedurally leaves that kind of tactic the only serious recourse one has against the perpetrators of what is rightfully criminal behavior both under color of law, and by private conspiracies for profit and power. That kind of tactic, to create a 10 mile plume of air and water calling for disposing of homes, parks, military bases, and corporate centers, on the land and in underground water, as Hazmat and burnt soil for years into the future, would reach many of those ultimately responsible who now find themselves above the law.
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| Well | Jan 2nd. at 12:00:34 pm EST
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Orion 6Xray (Park City, Kentucky) - Email Me - Web
The Christianists have the power of imanant domain now. WOW we are screwed. This is what the majority of the witch trials were about, seizing private property.
"The lord givith, the lord taketh away."
Find More info -- HERE
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| I Wonder | Jan 2nd. at 11:48:34 am EST
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Cheryl (Newark, Delaware) - Email Me
if they would have ruled the same way if it were a minority religion instead of a "nondenominational" middle school.
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| No Benefit Here. | Jan 2nd. at 11:42:52 am EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
No matter, there is little to show that an entire community would be benefitted by the loss of anyone's home to any church, since not everyone would be attending. Not everyone would be benefitting. certainly not the one losing her home for this private school.
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| This Wouldn't Seem A Corruption Of Intention | Jan 2nd. at 10:57:50 am EST
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booley (Saint Louis, Missouri) - Email Me
.. of Eminent Domain IF
One. The courts and government weren't so "liberal" with their definition of "blighted". Yes, some neighborhoods are blighted with boarded up homes. But others are just old neighborhoods with low property values.
And Two, if the project this house was being taken for was for the public good. But it's for a private church to build a school that only some people will able to attend. and how does anyone know this will benefit the community?
I can see how sometimes (SOMETIMES as in rarely, occasionally, as a last resort) private property needs to be used for public works.
But this doesn't seem to be for that. It just seems to be abuse of the principle to benefit certain groups.
Find More info -- HERE
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| Regardless If Her House Had Been Condemned ... | Jan 2nd. at 10:25:55 am EST
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Cheryl Grant (Oakville, Ontario) - Email Me
it is ridiculous that she had to accept payment at below market value so that a church could build a school on her property.
I don't see a whole lot of separation of church and state here ...
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