Eminent domain abuse in Schaumburg
December 11, 2008In the past Peoria, has seen quite a bit of abuse of eminent domain laws. They’ve used it to take away private property and use it to build strip malls and baseball parks. But the most recent version of the Peoria City Council hasn’t even allowed this sort of thing to even reach the proposal stage. Yet.
Not so much in Schaumberg, according to the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition:
This property is home to a Sara Lee/Market Day outlet store that has given back hundreds of thousands of dollars back to the local community over the many years of its existence. This small store shown a great deal of concern for the people of our community that not many other local businesses can match.
It is also home to Hair Clip, whose owner escaped the oppression of communist Vietnam to live and work in the greatest bastion of freedom, the United States of America. Now that the Village of Schaumburg is looking to kick these people out of their businesses we are learning that the land of the free isn’t so free after all.
When private property can be taken away simply because someone with a lot of money wants it, then none of us are really any better off than serfs.
Even though the Kelo Decision didn’t go the way that people who care about property rights wanted, I think it did open a lot of eyes. I’m sorry it didn’t happen in Schaumburg.
But I’m worried that with the economy tanking and people in a panic, the politicians and the developers will be scaring people into turing a blind eye toward this kind of eminent domain abuse. After all, there are jobs at stake.Â
Feh.
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Tags: Eminent Domain, property rights