CBS 60 Minutes: Eminent Domain: Being Abused thru Blight?
“Jim and Joanne Saleet are refusing to sell the home they’ve lived in for 38 years. They live in a quiet neighborhood of single-family houses in Lakewood, Ohio, just outside Cleveland.
The City of Lakewood is trying to use eminent domain to force the Saleets out to make way for more expensive condominiums. But the Saleets are telling the town, “Hell no! They won’t go.”
But Lakewood’s mayor, Madeleine Cain, has other plans. She wants to tear down the Saleets’ home, plus 55 homes around it, along with four apartment buildings and more than a dozen businesses.
Why? So that private developers can build high-priced condos, and a high-end shopping mall, and thus raise Lakewood’s property tax base.
The mayor told 60 Minutes that she sought out a developer for the project because Lakewood’s aging tax base has been shrinking and the city simply needs more money.
“This is about Lakewood’s future. Lakewood cannot survive without a strengthened tax base. Is it right to consider this a public good? Absolutely,” says the mayor, who admits that it’s difficult and unfortunate that the Saleets are being asked to give up their home.”
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Leung, Rebecca. CBS News 28 September 2003.
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Wallace, Mike. CBS News 28 September 2003.