Here is a man to watch out for. Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskeegee, Alabama has a new museum coming to town honoring the Tuskeegee Airmen. It is expected to bring in 400,000 visitors a year and be an economic boon to the region. Great idea honoring great men. And it may bring some opportunities for new hotels and restaurants to the area.
But then ol’ Johnny decides he knows best. Instead of working with developers and hoteliers and restauranteurs to find properties and let the area organically grow, Johnny Ford is deciding to use all of the tools of government to take the property from landowners. He is going to use eminent domain, tax liens, public nuisance regulations and anything he can dream up to take property owners land.
Then he will give hotel companies free rent of the land and other tax payer incentives to use the property as Johnny sees best.
But lets take a minute to look at this a different way. There are people who have owned property in his town, paid taxes over the years, done what the law required to keep the property. Maybe they bought the land for investment thinking that the property might be worth much more when a developer came to town?
But good ol’ Johnny does not want the free market to work, he wants Johnny’s desires to work. Instead of letting a hotel developer buy up the property and build a hotel, Johnny will take a persons property to give a subsidy to the hotelier.
And on that ol’ Johnny is wrong. Very Wrong.
Ford loves eminent domain.
He says his town needs it as a catalyst for economic growth. He says he doesn’t believe in taking people’s homes, but he has a problem with absentee property owners in his town, some as close as Montgomery.
“I would suggest you talk with some of the people in Tuskegee,” said Jay Robert Street, when asked about efforts to revamp broken down houses in Tuskegee.
Street owns one of the 60 properties the city recently declared public nuisances. Owners typically have 90 days to get their buildings up to code before the city steps in, using tax liens to pay for repairs and cleanup.
“Here is an example where eminent should be used,” he said of the 40-acre gateway to Tuskegee. via montgomeryadvertiser.com
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