| Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Dec. 2, 1999 Dean Starkman Give and Take Getting Trashed |
"Government is getting more brazen," fumes the receiver's lawyer. Jeff Pitzer, who is
particularly irked that the speedway company paid the agency's legal costs. That isn't
unusual. savs a lawyer for the redevelopment authority, Harry Sterling, who adds that the
speedway, which had opened in 1997 and is drawing big Crowds. is a "huge boon" to
the region.
The speedway operator, a unit of Dover Downs Entertainment Inc. of Dover, Del., says it
needed more land. The recycler is appealing its property in a higher state court. The
U.S.Constitution endorses the taking of private property for public use,"
with compensation.
Lately, communities intent on creating jobs and increasing their tax bases have
stretched the meaning of "public use" to embrace a host of undertakings that promise to
improve their economic or, in some cases, social well-being. Critics complain that
when governments cannibalize smaller but viable businesses, they trample property
owners' rights.
Everybody is making money except the indigenous inhabitants of the redeveloped area."
says Gideon Kanner, professor emeritus at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who
calls the trend "profoundly immoral. "Critics also say condemnations sometimes are
carried out to help the politically powerful at the expense of the less-well-connected. "I
call it the marriage of big business and big government," says Joseph R. Borich III, a
lawyer in Leawood. Kan. who represents a hotel, a convenience store and other
businesses being condemned to make way for a speedway. "The little property owners
get creamed."
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