Proposition 99 00.00
04/06
  Opinion  
 
  Let's see now.  The goal here is supposedly to build a legal barrier against the application of the US Supreme Court's Kelo decision, which allowed states, cities and public agencies to take private property and hand it off to support private uses which would increase the revenues of the states, cities and agencies.  And yet we find, lined up by the hundreds in the array of supporters for this measure:  cities and public agencies!!

Our intelligence is being insulted.

Most people have figured out, usually by the age of 5 or 6, that when someone in authority says "I would like to give you A and B and C, BUT ..", that they are NOT going to give B or C, and probably only part of A.  Just so with this proposition.

Its authors promise restrictions upon the use of eminent domain:

BUT NOT for farmlands or businesses properties or apartment houses or summer homes or rentals or indeed any place where the owners have not set up a cot and made it their "principal residence for at least one year".  Apparently some property rights are less right than others.

BUT NOT if the State or local government uses eminent domain to obtain private property for use as a "public work", per THEIR definition of public work, which includes darn near every possible construction activity that government could ever do (and specifically includes "private uses incidental to, or necessary for, the public work or improvement".  (Specifically included in this category are public works within the jurisdiction of local "redevelopment" agencies, those hidden bastions of central planning within every major city in the state, which have a track record of wastefully taking and giving properties, selling bonds, and building public debt, all without direct oversight from the electorate.)

BUT NOT if the taking by eminent domain is already in process, or the go-ahead for it has been given.  To these people, the use of eminent domain is not a matter of principle, an activity that should be stopped and is wrong to do at almost any time; rather, it appears to be a matter of what the proponents believe they can get away with, for as long as they can.

You can vote yes on this monstrosity, and enshrine the status quo in the state constitution.  Or, you can reject central planning, government theft, hypocrisy, and manipulation, and
 
 
  Vote NO on 99.  
 
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