"60 Minutes" Exposes Eminent Domain -- Transcript Now Online
On September 28, CBS's "60 Minutes" ran an outstanding -- and
shocking -- Mike Wallace report entitled "Eminent Domain." It told how
the evil process of "eminent domain" is being increasingly used by
governments to seize thousands of private homes and businesses to
reward favored private businesses, all in the name of serving what
these politicians and bureaucrats deem to be "the public good."
"Cities across the country have been using eminent domain to force
people off their land, so that private developers can build more
expensive homes and offices that will pay more in property taxes than
the buildings they're replacing," Mike Wallace declared.
The show told how the city council of Lakewood, Ohio has arbitrarily
declared a charming, close-knit neighborhood called Scenic Park to be
"blighted" -- so that over 50 homes, four apartment buildings and over
a dozen buildings can be seized by the city and sold to hand-picked
private developers.
These developers in turn will build new condos -- which will mean
higher property taxes for the Lakewood government.
"Blighted," Mike Wallace quickly discovered, is a word that means just
about whatever a city wants it to mean. To seize the Scenic Park
neighborhood, the Lakewood government simply defined "blight" in such
a broad way as to include most of the homes in the handsome (and very
un-blighted) Scenic Park neighborhood.
Outraged Scenic Park residents were quick to point out that more than
90 percent of *all* houses in Lakewood could be deemed "blighted" by
the absurdly broad definition the politicians concocted -- including,
incredibly, the homes of the mayor and all seven council members
themselves.
Yet even this astonishing revelation -- proof positive of the blatant
hypocrisy of the scheme -- didn't change the council's determination
to steal these particular homes.
Similar horrors are taking place across the country. And Wallace also
told who is fighting back: libertarians! Wallace interviewed Dana
Berliner and Scott Bullock of what he described as "a libertarian
non-profit group called The Institute for Justice" which is helping
property owners fight such abuses in court.
"This is a nation-wide epidemic," libertarian Berliner told Wallace.
"We have documented more than 10,000 instances of government taking
property from one person to give it to another in just the last five
years."
There was much more in this amazing report. If you missed the show,
CBS has posted the full transcript online at the URL below.
(Sources: 60 Minutes transcript: .
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/60minutes/main575343.shtml )
Institute for Justice
http://www.ij.org )
* * *