alan
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D.C.’s ‘Quick Take’ Has Residents Doing a Double-Take
“The District government filed court papers yesterday to seize $84 million worth of property from 16 owners in Southeast, giving them 90 days to leave and make way for a baseball stadium,” The Washington Post reports. “By invoking eminent domain, city officials said last week, they hope to keep construction of the Washington Nationals' ballpark on schedule to open in March 2008. The city exercised its ‘quick take’ authority, in which it takes immediate control of the titles to the properties.”
In “Government-Funded Stadiums Not Worth Price of Admission,” Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow writes: “Stadium advocates have been amazingly successful in taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Some wealthy sports moguls, such as Managing General Partner Al Davis of the NFL Oakland Raiders, have turned mulcting taxpayers into an art form." In “An Excess of Power,” Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: “A government that doesn't respect the title to your land is in all likelihood a government that will in time lose respect for your property in your right to speech, arms, and due process. And indeed in recent years, with help from the Supreme Court, government at all levels has run roughshod over even our explicitly enumerated rights."
“The District government filed court papers yesterday to seize $84 million worth of property from 16 owners in Southeast, giving them 90 days to leave and make way for a baseball stadium,” The Washington Post reports. “By invoking eminent domain, city officials said last week, they hope to keep construction of the Washington Nationals' ballpark on schedule to open in March 2008. The city exercised its ‘quick take’ authority, in which it takes immediate control of the titles to the properties.”
In “Government-Funded Stadiums Not Worth Price of Admission,” Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow writes: “Stadium advocates have been amazingly successful in taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Some wealthy sports moguls, such as Managing General Partner Al Davis of the NFL Oakland Raiders, have turned mulcting taxpayers into an art form." In “An Excess of Power,” Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: “A government that doesn't respect the title to your land is in all likelihood a government that will in time lose respect for your property in your right to speech, arms, and due process. And indeed in recent years, with help from the Supreme Court, government at all levels has run roughshod over even our explicitly enumerated rights."
