Re: John Roberts, Supreme Court Nominee

Let’s hear no more about “moderation.”  Do you want a moderate police officer, who arrests half of the criminals?  Do you want a moderate surgeon, who fixes half of the diseased hearts?  Then, why seek a moderate justice, who will obey the Constitution half of the time?

This is a must read

Making a Stand for a Friend

The Hansberger - Foster / Granlund - Ellis Dispute is really hard for me to watch on a personal level. Being so active in mid '90s politics, I worked very hard  with all of these guys. On that personal level, I like all the players on both sides of this issue. Something about the political junky in me that causes such a joy to watch a well oiled political machine work its magic. At the same time nothing is as nasty as to watch  one that implodes because of greed and misplaced loyalties. So much for the A-Team; the Hansberger machine is doing that today. Friends have to end up taking sides.

Early on Brett Granlund and I became instant friends and have continued our friendship long past his political career. We remain close friends to this day. I can tell you with confidence that if Brett has a fault it is his stubborn honesty.

Brett has always followed the law. Brett actually believes in fair and open government. Brett was an old fashioned citizen politician. When he termed out, he moved on.

When Brett left political office he went back into the business world. He waited out the prerequisite couple of years and then went into the lobbying business. He took what he learned in the Assembly and used it to help small cities to gain access to their state government.  He followed the law. He is an honorable man.

Brett is well grounded with strong support from his wife Lonnie and a huge extended family in business and law enforcement. I just can't see Brett doing something illegal or unethical. I have to stand up in support for my old friend.

Dan O'Brien

Why Twentynine Palms is important

About 50,000 active-duty and reserve Marines train every year at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, the world's largest Marine base.
It is well-known for its live-fire training, using a wide range of weapons and running an advanced communications-electronics school.
The base, in the high desert about 60 miles from Palm Springs, is a key training ground for those who are heading into combat in Iraq. Some 12,000 active-duty Marines and sailors and one-third of the 1st Marine Division are stationed on the 935-square-mile base. (Desert Sun)

Changes at Public Integrity Unit: Too Little, Too Late

Often called "The Frank Vanella Traveling Magic Show,"  the Public Integrity Unit was famous for taking valid public corruption complaints and making them disappear. When the State Law or Attorney General Opinions conflicted with the predetermined white washing of almost all citizen complaints filed, the law or the AG opinions were just disregarded.

The creation of a Public Integrity Unit was a key plank in District Attorney Mike Ramos' successful campaign for district attorney. He created the unit in 2003, soon after taking office, in the wake of a series of government corruption scandals that rocked San Bernardino County in the mid-1990s.

The Board of Supervisors have all but given up on trusting the Public Integrity Unit for investigations of public corruption and have used their own County Attorney and outside legal help in recent years to prosecute some very well known cases. Cases by the way the Public Integrity Unit declined to prosecute.

Now that it is getting close to re-election time and some very public corruption cases have slipped through the cracks in the DA's office, Ramos now decides to clean house at the Public Integrity Unit. We think it is too little too late.

Public Integrity Unit to lower its veil

New policy calls for transparent actions

 By Rod Leveque
 Staff Writer / Daily Bulletin

 SAN BERNARDINO - District Attorney Mike Ramos' Public Integrity Unit is becoming a lot more public.
 Ramos announced Friday that the specialized unit, created to investigate government wrongdoing, will begin releasing more information to the public about the complaints it receives and the actions it takes. The new policy, effective immediately, is a marked shift from the old, in which nearly everything the unit did was deemed confidential. "Our old policies were well-intentioned," Assistant District Attorney Jim Hackleman said. "But I don't think we were doing as good of a job as we hoped at getting the message out that this is an active unit that is responding regularly to complaints that come to us." More

CPU, Diploma Mill or Accredited University?

If you have noticed on the sidebar we have been having a running conversation with the folks at Alumni Columbia Pacific Uninversity. We ran out of comment space on that thread and this post is to only be able to continue the dialog. this is not news just a housekeeping problem with the Blog program. Shall we continue?

To Paul,
Look friend you come to this site in an attempt to justify a phony degree. You found not one person other than fellow CPU Grads, in support of your silliness. I know what the state of California says on the value of a Columbia Pacific University (CPU) degree, read it yourself
  http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles/cpec1990.pdf page 3 of 4
The state or California law does not judge the worth of a CPU degree, that is left to accrediting agencies, other schools, and employers. That was the old law and it is the new law. The information is on your site for Christ sakes. CPU failed to pass its inspections, its records were a joke.

You've liked to try to twist the facts to your own advantage here. You just don't get it, the facts are stacked against you.

Let's assume for a moment that those that received their "degree" in 1983-1986 did so in good faith.
 http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles/1983approval.pdf
CPU was authorized Two programs, Bachelor of Administration and management, and Master of Administration and Management. That is it, but I have personally seen degrees from CPU covering every discipline from Aeronautics to Community Development to Psychology up to the Ph.D level during the same period. Obviously those degrees were not authorized. Even those authorized were never accredited (see: cpec 1990.pdf).

Now lets look at the 1986 approval list.
http://www.altcpualumni.org/chronicles/1986approval.pdf Not a single discipline had obtained accreditation from a US Department of Education approved agency.
 http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html

Now as for the worth of those degrees; The state of California is stuck with the fact that they blew it. While California accepts those pre 1997 degrees as approved they do not and never did say they were accredited and never said they were of any value (see: cpec 1990.pdf) As for other states and the federal government, 24 states and the Federal Government consider the use of a CPU degree as fraud and those using them to gain employment committing a criminal act.

Are these facts in question? NO. Will continued discussion change those facts? No.  Deputy Attorney General Asher Rubin said it best  in his complaint, calling it "a diploma mill which has been preying on California consumers for too many years."

Who am I going to believe; the overwhelming educational, legal  and government community backed by scores of investigative documentations or a CPU Grad? You guess.

Justice Department Monitored Election In San Diego, California

WASHINGTON, July 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Justice Department today announced that federal observers and Civil Rights Division personnel monitored the July 26 special mayoral election in San Diego, California, to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

Under the Voting Rights Act, which protects the rights of Americans to participate in the electoral process without discrimination, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the Office of Personnel Management to send federal observers to areas that are specially covered in the act itself or by a federal court order. Federal observers were assigned to monitor polling place activities in San Diego pursuant to a federal court order entered on July 7, 2004.
 (More)

Bogh Backs McClintock's Bill to Tighten Law in Wake of Kelo

The Supreme Court of the United States recently decided that state and local governments could use eminent domain to take your property and give it to a developer who will build an office building, or retail complex because the tax revenue generated from those buildings would be greater than the property tax paid by the property owner. In what I believe is a reckless disregard for the Constitution, the court held that the increased tax revenue constitutes a public good since that tax revenue would fund public projects.

You can rest assured that I was as outraged as anyone over the court’s decision to eliminate the property rights of all Americans. But the court also held that state and local governments can enact legislation that would limit which types of property can be seized. As a result, I co-authored Senate Constitutional Amendment 15 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 22, both of which prohibit the seizure of private property for transfer to another private party.

Russ Bogh

Assemblyman, 65th District

Tyranny-by-the-Sea in Carmel

On a wine-tasting trip last week I passed through Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, a hyphenated municipality on the coast near Monterey where the tyranny of pendantic punctuation is the least of residents' worries.

The Carmel Pine Cone, a local weekly newspaper published since 1915, offered two troubling stories about elected officials threatening local liberty.

Example # 1: "Business learns not to try to change its name"

Carmel Plaza can't be renamed The Courtyard at Carmel, the planing commission voted 4-1 Wednesday, because Carmel has lots of courtyards and people already know the shopping center at Ocean and Junipero as the Plaza.

"They can change it to whatever name they want, except the one we don't like," commissioner Alan Hewer said.

"This name may be misleading, or perhaps even presumptuous, as there are many countyards throughout the city and these have existed far longer than the Plaza," he reported.

Munoz Swims Against the Tide on Kelo

Our own City Attorney Patrick Munoz is a redevelopment wonk, in his page 2 Desert Trail news/opinon piece this week he echos the party line of the CRA (California Redevelopment Association). Little has been accomplished by our own redevelopment agency in a traditional sense. No low income housing,  no new roads, no living wage jobs, or actual "public use" improvements. We have only incured a tiddy debt to the taxpayer. A more narrowly defined difinition of "Blight" would go a long way to protecting property from the folly of redevelopment for the sake of itself. As it is now no property is safe from being declared blighted.

Dan Walters of the Sacremento Bee writes, "As declarations of "blight" became increasingly fanciful - one city declared wetlands to be blighted because they were wet - the Legislature stepped in to tighten up the laws governing redevelopment. But it's a continuing process, with development-hungry cities constantly pushing the envelope and/or asking the Legislature to loosen up restrictions."

In the recent opinion written by Dan Walters: Supreme Court eminent domain ruling reverberates in California "... The measure introduced by McClintock and other legislators of both parties would restrict eminent domain in California to purely public purposes - with the exception of regulated utilities - and thus preclude its being used to put together packages of land for private developments.

This raises the hackles of [John Shirey, CRA's executive director] and other redevelopment advocates, who while contending that eminent domain is used in California only as a last resort, complain that the measure could, in his words, "stifle efforts by local governments and redevelopment agencies to build affordable housing, clean up polluted properties, revitalize the most downtrodden neighborhoods in need of help and create jobs, jobs, jobs." How many jobs? His bulletin about the McClintock measure claims that redevelopment is "responsible for more than $31.84 billion in economic activity and the creation of 310,000 full-and part-time jobs in a single year." That's quite a feat, if true, since it would mean redevelopment is responsible for every job created in California in one year, and then some.

Such hyperbole indicates that it's time for the Legislature to take another look at redevelopment agencies and the billions of dollars in debt they have amassed." (Read the whole Article)

There is no economic reason we need a redevelopment agency. The budget sucked off the teet of the city treasury could be put to better use. If we can not do away with it we should limit its authority so narrowly that it could only be used for traditional "Public Use." Public use that does not include the overly broad idea of "Public Purpose."

Desert Dispatch: Restoring rights

... Different states have different standards for using eminent domain, and California imposes a blight requirement before condemnation begins. That requirement is wafer-thin, offering no substantial barrier to cities looking to use eminent domain to boost the tax base by bulldozing middle class areas to help big-box stores locate on the same spot.

So California needs protection. Fortunately, state Sen. Tom McClintock now officially has introduced a state constitutional amendment that would allow eminent domain only for public uses, as intended by the U.S. Constitution. Government could take property to build a road or a school, but not to build a chain store...

... The Orange County Board of Supervisors this week will consider endorsing the McClintock amendment.

The California Redevelopment Association is frantic about these efforts, issuing alerts to members calling the McClintock bill "a solution in search of a problem." Tell that to the many California property owners who have been victims.

The group is urging redevelopment officials to lobby their legislators. Concerned citizens need to contact their legislators also and ask them who they are going to listen to, companies and officials that benefit from eminent domain, or the public who suffers from it... More

Boxer Joins to Protect Property Rights

Your letters and calls to Senator Box about the Kelo decision has had an effect. We just recieved this from her office.

 Although the government has the right to appropriate private property for public use through eminent domain, the founders of our great nation provided protections against the abuse of this right.  These protections are included in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which allows the government to seize private property only for public use and requires that the owner of the confiscated property be justly compensated.
        
    In its Kelo decision, the Supreme Court found that the government may seize the private property of one owner and transfer that property to another private owner if this transfer would benefit the community through increased economic development.                                    
  
    I believe that the Court's finding violates the private property rights that the Founders fought so hard to protect.  That is why I am a cosponsor of S.1313, the Protection of Homes, Small Businesses, and Private Property Act of 2005.  This bipartisan bill would protect homes, small businesses, and other private property by limiting the power of eminent domain.  Rest assured, I remain committed to protecting the property rights of all Americans.

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Hug a Palm Tree

Here John Weeks of the San Bernardino Sun makes light of Urban Planners...

Imagine the scene at some museum of the future.

Kid: "Mommy! Mommy! What are those tall skinny trees behind that one fence?'

Mom: "Those are palm trees, honey. Aren't they beautiful? They used to be everywhere in the Inland Empire.'

Kid, wide-eyed: "Wow! Really?'

Far-fetched?

Maybe not.

Palm trees are falling out of favor these days. And falling, as you know, is not good for trees.

Urban planners say palms provide no shade, pose a fire risk, harbor rats and other pests and are messy and high-maintenance. More

What Kind Of Conservative? - Forbes.com

[Justice John Roberts] once wrote a law review article arguing that property owners should receive compensation for government actions that diminish the value of their land or even make that value "insecure," a standard far exceeding the one established in the Court's recent Kelo decision upholding condemnation of land for a New London, Conn. private development anchored by Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ). As a private lawyer, however, he successfully argued before the Supreme Court that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency could impose a moratorium on development without compensating landowners. More

San Diego's Marine Corps Recruit Depot to stay open

WASHINGTON - The Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego will stay open, after a federal commission voted Tuesday to keep it off a list of military bases around the country being proposed for closures and downsizings. The vote by the nine-member commission was 6-2, with one recusal, to keep the depot open. Seven votes would have been needed to add the base to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's proposed closure list. More

Bush Picks Roberts

WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush chose conservative appeals court judge John Roberts on Tuesday as his first nominee to the Supreme Court, putting his stamp on the closely divided court and igniting what could be a partisan clash over its ideological direction for decades to come. More

The Race To Pillage The Village

It seems that the various city and county governments around the country have shot themselves in the foot. After Kelo vs. New London, there was a gleeful rush to condemn coveted private property so it could be taken for redevelopment. As a result, citizens all over the nation are contacting their state representatives.

Is time running out for those who abuse eminent domain?

"With no power, of which they are possessed, do [legislatures] seem to be less familiar, or to handle less awkwardly, than that of eminent domain. . . . At times they fail, or seem to fail, to distinguish accurately between public and private ends, and if their terms and language be alone consulted, to pervert the power to uses to which it cannot lawfully be applied." - Sherman v. Buick (California Supreme Court, 1867)

It now appears that the use of eminent domain for private development may eventually be curtailed or even prohibited in many states. This of course has caused some municipalities to work even faster as they try to get projects started while they can still legally do so. And that of course has simply added fuel to the fire to stop the abuse of eminent domain.
More

San Diego officials convicted of corruption

SAN DIEGO -- A federal jury convicted two San Diego City Council members yesterday of a scheme to take illegal campaign contributions from the owner of a strip club who sought to ease a rule against contact between dancers and customers. Jurors deliberated less than three days before finding Councilmen Michael Zucchet, who is also the acting mayor, and Ralph Inzunza guilty. Each could face three to four years in federal prison at sentencing for conspiracy, extortion and wire fraud. Zucchet and Inzunza, both 35, and Councilman Charles Lewis were indicted two years ago after a lengthy investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Las Vegas and San Diego. Lewis died of cirrhosis a year later. It is unclear who will succeed Zucchet, whose conviction leaves California's second-largest city rudderless at one of the most troubled points in its history. Mayor Dick Murphy resigned and left office Friday, seven months into a second term cut short by mounting problems at City Hall.
More

L.A. Daily News - Property needs safety from seizure

By Harold Johnson and Timothy Sandefur
 
Land-use bureaucrats are high-fiving each other after the Supreme Court's recent eminent-domain decision -- Kelo v. New London -- which gives them vast new power over private property. But the ruling has spawned public anger that should curb their enthusiasm.

In California, the cheering in the zoning and redevelopment offices won't last long if Kelo critics have their way.... (More)

Hot News: Homeowners Ask U.S. Supreme Court: Rehear Eminent Domain Case

Washington, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court has one final chance to correct one of its most-despised decisions in recent memory-its ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows the use of eminent domain for private development. Today the Institute for Justice will file a petition for rehearing on behalf of New London, Conn., homeowners asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling from June 23 that has already opened up the floodgates to eminent domain abuse.

“We will be the first to admit that our chances of success with this motion are extremely small, but if there is any case that deserves to reheard by the Supreme Court, it is the Kelo case,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice. “This is the worst Supreme Court decision in years. Hopefully the Court will see the abuse of power that it has unleashed and will reconsider its misguided and dangerous opinion.”  More

Property Rights: Tom McClintock's "Kelo Protection" Amendment

State Senator Tom McClintock promised to introduce a constitutional amendment to protect property rights in California. Wednesday he held a press conference to "announce the introduction of SCA 15 and ACA 22 to restore the original property rights protections of the American Bill of Rights that were ripped out of the Constitution by the Kelo decision of the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago."

The proposed amendment to the California constitution ought to be taken as a model for other states in the wake of the enormous wave of Kelo-inspired outrage still swirling throughout the nation. With or without Kelo, state law can still provide adequate protection against sloppy jurisprudence at the national level.

In California, as in many other states, a large and likely unnecessary bureaucracy exists in the name of "redevelopment"—the government's active involvement in planning and developing land. Citing the sort of loose definition of "public use" that Kelo legitimizes, local governments across the nation often run roughshod over citizen's property rights.

It should come as no surprise that redevelopment bureaucrats will likely be the major source of opposition to McClintock's "Homeowner and Property Protection Act:"

Redevelopment agencies are planning to fight the effort.

John Shirey, executive director of the California Redevelopment Association, said California already has laws carefully restricting the use of eminent domain. But sometimes redevelopment agencies need to seize property if it is particularly blighted, he said. (Harrison Sheppard, LA Daily News)

Now it is true that under California law, local governments are supposed to use eminent domain in "blighted" areas. Yet, as we will never tire of explaining, local governments habitually designate whatever they happen to want to seize as "blighted." As colleague Conor Friedersdorf posted yesterday, "everything is blighted" according to the currently elastic definitions promoted by redevelopment advocates. This case study from our newsletter explains how redevelopment works in practice—the city of Claremont simply labeled its wealthy downtown area "blighted" in spite of the obvious.

Executive Director Shirey also laments that McClintock's ". . . amendment eliminates the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes." Um, yes. That’s the point. As the amendment says:

It is the intent of the Legislature that private property shall not be taken or damaged for the use, exploitation, or management of any private party, including, but not limited to, the use, exploitation, or management of property taken or damaged by a corporation or other business entity for private profit, as is currently permitted under the United States Constitution under Kelo v. City of New London . . .

This solution to protect property rights in spite of the SCOTUS ought have widespread bipartisan support. It deserves a great deal more press than it has so received so far—bloggers take note and spread the word!

Taxing trips

By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell

PICO RIVERA -- Summer is vacation time for most families, but city council members in the Whittier area spent thousands of tax dollars during the past year traveling to such locales as Puerto Rico and Las Vegas.

A survey of local city council members' travel expenses logged between July 2004 and last month shows that some officials spent thousands of city tax dollars flying to conferences and conventions in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Palm Springs and Washington, D.C., among other locations, and staying at expensive hotels like the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

More

This story reminds us of our last council.

Land Deal Is Probed in S.B. County

San Bernardino County prosecutors are investigating a land deal involving Supervisor Dennis Hansberger's chief of staff, which county administrators are also reviewing to see whether the purchase violated ethics policies adopted after a mid-1990s corruption scandal.
Chief Administrative Officer Mark Uffer last week asked the district attorney's office to investigate the purchase of four-tenths of an acre of surplus county property, a transaction involving Jim Foster and former GOP Assemblyman Brett Granlund of Yucaipa.
More

This land is my land, it isn't your land

Tony DiPasquale

... I wondered how it was that Justices of the Supreme Court, five to be exact, could rationalize that taking of private property in order to spur economic growth or increase tax revenues could be considered a "public use" under the public use clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Luckily Justice Stevens, writing the majority opinion for the Court, clarified the rationale behind this decision when he wrote that:

 "Not only was "use by the public" test too difficult to administer, but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society." Id. at 17.

Yep that about sums it up, Stevens seems to think that the Constitution is just to hard too constantly abide by, plus it should be a "living, breathing document" capable of dealing with changes in a society. Hmmm. Tell me again why the Framers gave us an amendment process? What happens if the First Amendment becomes too difficult to administer? Or that's right Congress just passes McCain- Feingold.

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/dipasquale/050623

FrontPage magazine.com: Originalism Above All Else by Steven Geoffrey Gieseler

This is no postmodernist-gibberish screed on how words don't mean anything. Indeed, the usual carping about labels in the law and in politics is considerably overwrought. Justice Rehnquist is generally conservative, and Justice Stevens is generally liberal. Labels often fit. But such generalizations are detriments to the impending debate because they obscure what really matters. Fidelity to the original intent of the Constitution must be the sole ideological criterion used to evaluate any nominee. Everything else is noise.
Originalism alone produces a body of law evincing the will of America's citizenry. America has assented to the Constitution as the nation's supreme law, altered only by its own process of amendment. Every day that it remains unchanged, it is ratified again as our governing document. Any deviation from the Constitution that occurs outside of its own terms not only lacks the consent of the governed, but violates it. This includes deviation by judicial fiat.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18785

Washington Examiner: Is this the end of the Constitution?

All President George W. Bush has to do is point to the U.S. Supreme Court's horrible June 23 decision on eminent domain to justify nominating strict constructionists to fill any court vacancies on his watch. In Kelo v. City of New London, the current court effectively gutted the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, which used to prohibit private property from being "taken for public use without just compensation." Now it's not even protected from being taken for private use.
The use of eminent domain was traditionally limited to public infrastructure such as roads, bridges and schools, but the court expanded the definition of "public use" in 1954 to include slum clearance and redevelopment. The landmark 5-4 New London decision erodes property rights even further, giving local government officials power to seize property and hand it over to private developers based on little more than the promise of increased tax revenue.
(More)

Desert Trail: "Profit is nice but community is more important."

Here is a great editorial by the Desert Trail. Kurt is sounding an alarm bell and we all better listen.

From: Something is wrong in 29

Not long ago we listened while a local businessman told us he would have to move his store to another location because his rent had been raised beyond what he could afford to pay.

More recently we heard from another business-person who said his rent was being raised beyond what he could afford to pay and that he might have to move his business not just to another location but possibly out of Twentynine Palms altogether.

Here at The Desert Trail we are well aware of the rising price of renting houses, duplexes and apartments. In the past few months the amount being sought by landlords and property managers has risen tremendously. (More)

Desert Dispatch: Thinking It Through by Dr. Richard Reeb

Many Americans expressed justifiable outrage at the decision of the United States Supreme Court June 23 in Kelo v. New London, Connecticut. A narrow 5-4 majority upheld forcible taking of private homes to make way for a more profitable, sales-tax paying shopping center to enrich the city's revenues. This is confiscation pure and simple. As bad as that decision was, it was worse that the nation's highest court betrayed the hopes of America's founders for limited government and free, uncoerced trade. After all, the most pressing reason for United States Constitution was to put an end to confiscatory policies by state governments, heretofore unrestrained by a supreme law. What the Court did in Kelo was, in effect, to reverse the intentions of the founding fathers and put us at the mercy of rapacious state and local governments.

http://www.desertdispatch.com/2005/112134803575906.html

Everything Is Blighted

California law says that land must be "blighted" to be included in a redevelopment area, within which localities have broad powers of eminent domain and more control over tax revenue. Yet localities skirt this provision fequently, a reality even critics of strict standards for redevelopment acknowledge.

How do localities interpret the law? Guidelines posted by the California Redevelopment Association on its Web site give us insight. Among the conditions that supposedly justify a finding of blight:

- Incompatible adjacent or nearby uses of land parcels that hinder economic activity.
- Adverse physical factors, such as susceptibility to flooding and earthquakes, that demand significant improvements to buildings in order that they be safe for occupancy. (This would seem to justify a finding of blight for the entire state.)
- Small and irregularly shaped lots under multiple ownership that are vacant or under-utilized.
- Outdated and inefficient building configuration and design that does not meet current business needs.
- Unsafe access into buildings or parking lots.
- Inadequate and obsolete infrastructure, (i.e. utilities, storm drainage, sewers, street lighting, and confusing and inefficient street systems).
- Depreciated or stagnant property values and other evidence of disinvestment.

California lawmakers seek to strengthen homeowners' rights

SACRAMENTO - A group of California lawmakers is trying to block the impact of last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded the government's power to seize private property, a decision that was swiftly criticized by groups across the political spectrum. In the 5-4 decision, the nation's highest court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses without their consent for private development. State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, said the court ruling in Kelo v. New London allows governments to "take the house of a person that it doesn't like, and give it to a person that it does like."
More

A Note from our Founding Fathers

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." John Adams

New Haven Advocate: A New (London) Low

Those who believe in the adage "when it rains, it pours" might take the tale of the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London as a cue to buy two of every animal and a load of wood from Home Depot. The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation. In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000 .

http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:119045

Kelo forging strange alliances

Here is a little from the Victor Valley Daily Press. This is a must read.
"....Any day now, George W. Bush is going to nominate someone to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. He says he has no "litmus test" in evaluating potential nominees. We wish he had at least one, to wit: Does the nominee agree with Kelo? If yes, immediate disqualification for the Court is in order, because that's so far out of the "mainstream," it qualifies the candidate for immediate transport to the nearest home for the befuddled. Sadly, a tiny minority of political types, Pelosi and Waxman included, already reside there."
http://www.vvdailypress.com/2005/112126011969732.html

Local Agenda 21- The U.N. Plan for Your Community 21 1-10-98

Agenda 21, the UN blueprint for global transformation, sounds good to many well meaning people. Drafted for the purpose of creating "sustainable societies", it has been welcomed by nations around the world. Political, cultural, and media leaders have embraced its alluring visions of social justice and a healthy planet. They hide the lies behind its doomsday scenarios and fraudulent science. Relatively few consider the contrary facts and colossal costs.
After all, what could be wrong with preserving resources for the next generation? Why not limit consumption and reduce energy use? Why not abolish poverty and establish a global welfare system to train parents, monitor intolerance, and meet all our needs? Why not save the planet by trading cars for bikes, an open market for "self-sustaining communities," and single dwellings for dense "human settlements" (located on transit lines) where everyone would dialogue, share common ground, and be equal?
The answer is simple. Marxist economics has never worked. Socialism produces poverty, not prosperity. Collectivism creates oppression, not freedom. Trusting environmental "scientists" who depend on government funding and must produce politically useful "information" will lead to economic and social disaster.

http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/la21_198.html

Homeowners Associations: Sustainable development, smart growth and Kelo

I don't have the benefit of the Justices' grand staffs or unending salaries. But just a little research has turned up pretty much everything Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer would have needed to reach a logical conclusion that protection of private property rights are the most important rights, vital to the very foundation of a free society.
Our Founding Fathers left no doubt in their writings, their deeds, or their governing documents as to where they stood on the vital importance of private property. John Locke, the man whom the Founders followed as they created this nation said, "Government has no other end than the preservation of property." John Adams said, "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God; and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
One would be hard pressed to find a single word in the writings of the Founding Fathers to support the premise that it's okay to take private property for economic development. To the contrary, they believed that the root of economic prosperity is the protection of private property. More

Council Meeting..... Predictable.

The City Attorney made it sound like Kelo was nothing to worry about. Beware of lawyers carring olive branches. I would have felt better if the Council would have made a resolution in support of private property rights.

The Trash Bill is once again on your property tax.

Bogh Notes: 3 weeks late Bogh finally makes statememnt on Kelo

The Supreme Court of the United States recently decided that state and local governments could use eminent domain to take your property and give it to a developer who will build an office building, or retail complex because the tax revenue generated from those buildings would be greater than the property tax paid by the property owner. In what I believe is a reckless disregard for the Constitution, the court held that the increased tax revenue constitutes a public good since that tax revenue would fund public projects. You can rest assured that I was as outraged as anyone over the court's decision to eliminate the property rights of all Americans. But the court also held that state and local governments can enact legislation that would limit which types of property can be seized. As a result, I am looking at drafting legislation that will protect the property rights of individuals from governments that are more interested tax revenues than your rights.

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Yeah... ok, let's not hold our breath for the boys in Sacremento to do anything.

State seizure law still "blighted"

Jill Stewart guest columnist for the LA Daily News wrote, "... [O]ur "blight" protections against seizure are a joke. Neighborhoods constantly battle cities who declare areas "blighted," then take decent homes and businesses via eminent domain.

California law defines blight as a "physical and economic" liability which cannot be "reversed or alleviated" except by redevelopment. What fool decided local politicians understand how the economy will unfold? In 20 years, I've met precious few pols with more than a high-school grasp of market forces.

Yet today, these local buffoons decide if property presents an irreversible "physical and economic liability," allowing them to take private homes on the cheap."

We should give serious consideration to limiting the power of local government authority to apply eminent domain. A reasonable protection in our town would be to repeal the Redevelopment Agency. This would help eliminate the temptations of eminent domain abuse by our elected officials now and in the future.

Remember there is a Council Meeting tonight at 6:00 PM.

Top court's wayward home rule

San Francisco Chronicle
Here's why the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong in last month's ruling on Kelo vs. City of New London:

The Fifth Amendment makes clear that private property shall not be taken by the government for public use without just compensation. These safeguards have been under assault for decades. But until now, the typical victims were family farmers and ranchers in the West. The most recent attacks have come from government bureaucrats armed with a voracious appetite for big development and higher property taxes.

The Supreme Court's decision to allow local governments to declare eminent domain in this case goes beyond compensation; it wholly perverts the intent of public use and may turn the American dream of home ownership on its head....
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Tuesday's Dog and Pony Show

UPDATE: The Meeting will be held at 6:00 PM !!! Thanks to the folks at city hall who caught the mistake.
Tuesdays Council meeting is slated to go off at 6:00 PM. The Kelo report will be the same as what we Printed on June 29th.

http://www.rutan.com/pdf/kelo%20decision-Cosgrove.pdf

What is of interest on the agenda is a closed session on Swigart. Will they dump him or will they give him another raise?

Policy Center Warns: Beware of 'Kelo II'

Washington, D.C.--Unfortunately, the dreadful "Kelo v. City of New London" ruling isn't the only nightmare facing property owners this summer, the American Policy Center (APC) reported today.  According to draft language obtained by the Center, the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005" (TESRA 2005) is a major sellout to property rights advocates nationwide.  Appropriately, the Center has dubbed the bill "Kelo II."

"I can't believe what I'm looking at," said APC president Tom DeWeese referring to the draft language.  "Just as the Supreme Court's decision on Kelo has strengthened local governments' ability to run roughshod over the Fifth Amendment, TESRA 2005 strengthens the federal government's ability to steal private property under the Endangered Species Act."  According to the documents obtained, the TESRA 2005 language was produced by Congressman Richard Pombo's House Resources Committee office.

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_8632.shtml

Blue Sky and BRAC Facts

JOSHUA TREE - The Basin Wide Foundation held its second informational forum as part of a newly instituted format for its monthly breakfast meetings. The first Thursday of the month finds several representatives of local non-profit organizations, municipal agencies and interested community members gathered at the Helen Grey Center for a breakfast, some good old fashioned elbow rubbing and the monthly award of excellence. (More from Hi-Desert Star)

The pipe dream lost, City Manager Mike Swigart opined, "Long term we still think San Diego will eventually want to shut down Miramar."  With considerable defense assets in mothball along the West Coast if and when Miramar does move it will not come to Twentynine Palms for several reasons. Lemoore NAS and China Lake NAWC are expandable and underutilized at present. Why would the DoD pour precious resources to a MCAS at Twentynine Palms?

29 Alumnis, Former Claremont mayor Presecan, 64, dies

CLAREMONT - Nicholas Presecan had the resolve of a Marine, the mind of an engineer, the creativity of a poet and the heart of a servant.
The son of a Marine, Mr. Presecan was born Sept. 4, 1940, in Indianapolis, and spent his younger days moving from place to place before ending up in Twentynine Palms for his high school years. (More)