Eminent Domain Gone Wild
By California Yankee Posted in User Blogs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Riviera Beach, Florida is located across the inlet from Palm Beach. According to the Los Angeles Times, Riviera Beach is "mostly black" and "blue-collar."
The community's the mayor and other elected leaders want to move about 6,000, of the towns 32,000 residents, tear down their homes and use the emptied 400-acre site to build a waterfront yachting and residential complex for the well-to-do.
More fuel for the debate prompted by the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling allowing New London, Connecticut, to force homeowners to sell their properties for a private development. Is this area of Riviera Beach truly suffer from "slum and blighted conditions" making the proposed "redevelopment" necessary "in the interest of public health, safety, morals and welfare?" Or is this, as a Florida state legislator put it, reverse Robin Hood - robbing the poor to benefit the rich?