Govt. overreaching on eminent domain, free speech
“But Old Dominion University is nearby and covetous. It wants the land on which Central Radio sits, and through ODU’s Real Estate Foundation is well along toward seizing it by inciting the city government to wield the power of eminent domain. Condemnation proceedings against Central Radio have moved to the compensation phase. Dickinson says the compensation will be insufficient to enable the business to construct a comparable building, let alone buy land for it. ODU, whose plans for the neighborhood remain interestingly vague and may include a shopping center, is exploiting the judicial evisceration of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, the history of which is this:
The Constitution’s authors, who did not scatter adjectives carelessly, said property may be taken for “public” uses, meaning things – roads, bridges, buildings, etc. – directly owned by government and used by the general public. In 1954, however, in a case arising from what was then complacently called “urban renewal,” the Supreme Court expanded the category of “public use” to include the “public purpose” of curing “blight,” a concept of enormous elasticity when wielded by rapacious city governments. In 2005, in the Kelo case from New London, Conn., the court radically attenuated the “public use” restriction on takings. The court held, 5-4, that a city government can seize an unblighted neighborhood for the supposed “public” purpose of turning it over to a private business that, being wealthier than the previous owners, would be a richer source of tax revenues for the taking government.
In this appalling decision, the majority serenely said governments could be restrained by public opinion aroused against abuses of eminent domain. Now, however, Norfolk’s government is suppressing Central Radio’s speech protesting what the city is doing.”
Will, Geroge. Bowling Green Daily News 24 January 2013.