Tag Archives: david brown

stop eminent domain abuse NOW! urge support and passage of H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act

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I cut my activism teeth on fighting eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore, PA as part of  The Save Ardmore Coalition and with the help of the utterly fabulous Institute for Justice in Washington, DC.

My fellow Save Ardmore Coalition members and myself went to Washington and other places to fight side by side with people like Susette Kelo for legislation against eminent domain abuse.  Many of us gave testimony at the time on H.R. 4128. We introduced the author of H.R. 4128, now author of H.R. 1433 James Sensenbrenner to Ardmore to check it all out.

H.R. 4128 got buried, but has been resurrected today as H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act.

I am paying it forward and suggesting you do to.  Check out an e-mail just received from Christina Walsh at IJ:

Friends:
H.R. 1433, the Private Property Rights Protection Act, will likely be considered by the House of Representatives this week.  It was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month.  It is critical that you contact your representatives TODAY and tell them to vote for H.R. 1433.  You may remember that this bill passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly in 2005 by a vote of 376 – 38, but has been stonewalled in the Senate since.

You can find your representative’s contact information here.

This reform is long overdue.  H.R. 1433 will strip any municipality that abuses eminent domain of federal economic development funds for two years.  You can read the text of the bill here.  It’s time that Congress stop being complicit in the abuse of eminent domain.

Read IJ’s op-ed in the Washington Times on federal eminent domain reform efforts here and below.

Please forward this alert onto your friends, colleagues and e-mail lists, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Best,

Christina Walsh Director of Activism and Coalitions Institute for Justice 901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900 Arlington, VA 22203 (703) 682-9320 (703)-682-9321 (fax) www.ij.orgwww.castlecoalition.org

WALSH: Congress can halt eminent domain abuse Politicians must be stopped from using law to reward developer friends

When the U.S. Supreme Court rules, more often than not, that settles the matter.
But not in the case of Kelov. City of NewLondon, where the court sparked a revolt that quickly flared across more than three dozen states. The decision, handed down in 2005, told cities across the country to feel free to take away homes and businesses from property owners and give them to wealthy developers, as long as cities promise they think new developments might generate more tax dollars or jobs, with an emphasis on “think” and “might.”
There is no appeal of Supreme Court decisions and changing the Constitution is hard, but that didn’t stop states from setting more protective standards for their own property owners. Since Kelo, 44 states have enacted laws restricting the power of eminent domain to varying degrees, and more protections are being added. Virginia’s legislature is close to passing expanded protections.
Despite the differences in the reform efforts, the message remains the same: You got it wrong, Supreme Court. Now the nationwide revolt has come to Congress, finally allowing the federal government to join the effort to stop eminent domain abuse.
The power of eminent domain is supposed to be for “public use” so government can build things like roads and schools. Local governments essentially can force homeowners and business owners to sell their land, often at cut-rate prices, so essential services can be built. But starting with the wildly unsuccessful urban renewal efforts of the 1940s and 1950s, “public use” has been stretched to mean anything that possibly could benefit the public, not limited to what the public might actually share in using – shopping malls, fancy housing developments and office towers that could pay those local governments more in property taxes.
It has been demonstrated time and again that eminent domain is routinely used to wipe out black, Hispanic and poorer communities, with less political capital and influence, in favor of developers’ grand plans.
It also has been demonstrated that restrictions on eminent domain in no way inhibit economic growth, as the beneficiaries of eminent domain abuse would like you to believe. Development will continue to happen every day, as it always has, through private negotiation – not government force.
In fact, prohibitions on eminent domain abuse instill confidence in investments, leading to even stronger economic growth.
Groups across the philosophical spectrum have recognized the need to limit this abuse of power to protect those who are defenseless against the seemingly unstoppable alliance of powerful, deep-pocketed developers and their politician friends. The diverse coalition has included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Farm Bureau. It’s safe to say that the coalition also includes more than 80 percent of Americans, as demonstrated poll after poll taken after Kelo.
Despite the evidence that Americans are united against the misuse of eminent domain, Congress has yet to to take even a modest step. A bipartisan bill, H.R. 1433, making its way through the House would strip a city of federal economic development funding for two years if the city takes private property to give to someone else for their private use. Cities that want to keep their funding will have to be more circumspect in using eminent domain.
This bill undoubtedly will pass the House as it did in 2005, and likely will get stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, where it has gone to die in years past.
It is tragic because this is exactly the kind of centrist reform – uniting minority advocates and small-business interests – where Republicans and Democrats should be able to work together.
Christina Walsh is director of activism and coalitions for the Institute for Justice, which argued the Kelo case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

too much sunshine in west vincent for vampires?

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I am on pins and needles waiting for the update of last evening’s Board of Supervisors Meeting in West Vincent where they were discussing controlling the public voice as far as public participation. Or was he there and just really, really tiny wearing his Super Politician Cloak of Invisibility?

What I heard thus far is King of all Goats Supervisor Ken Miller was a no-show?  Now some of my farmer friends are starting to see their mama goats drop new kids on the block, so was he playing midwife?  Or merely playing possum?

And was the Township Manager James Wendelgass really out sick?  Does he need chicken soup from Chickenman? I seem to recall reading/hearing about absences like this when eminent domain was heating up to try to be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving?  So is this a small government tactic to make sure there are no quorums, etc when decisions have to be made?

My largest amusement factor of meeting tidbits thus far is Supervisor David Brown having an apparent case of selective male Alzheimer’s and having zero recall on how meetings, etc go in Lower Merion Township? Where he spent many years, as in decades before becoming a reinvented country gent? REALLY?

Ok so if he can’t remember, wow, if I were him I would worry about being effective as a West Vincent Supervisor.  Here are some choice activities from his own political resume posted on his own website (one will asume the website will stay up of course?) He posted this info, to show you the good people of West Vincent his qualifications.  So pardon me if I do not believe he doesn’t know anything about “how Lower Merion does things, and that’s where I’m from”.   See (partial posting):

CIVIC

  • Gladwyne Fire Company Director 1982 – 2005 Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2005 Solicitor 1980 – present
  • Gladwyne Civic Association Former Director

POLITICAL ACTIVITY

  • Republican Committee of Lower Merion & Narberth Committeeman 1976 – 1990
  • Counsel to Committee 1990 – 2004
  • Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2004
  • Former Solicitor to Montgomery County Controller

Mr. Brown, with all due respect to your many years of service in Lower Merion, but in my humble opinion, you know exactly how things are done now and were done then in Lower Merion.

As an outsider looking in, I do not get any of this.  Why so many issues that skirt transparency and sunshine let alone public participation in the government residents are paying for?  They want public participation, but only if they control it? Welcome to Pravda or what? How is West Vincent supposed to know and listen to its citizens if it muzzles them?

Is it true when it got around to this public participation on the agenda that Supervisor Brown said there was nothing to the issue other than to tell people that it was “still being worked on”?  Magna Carta anyone?

Maybe as a helpful outsider I can remind Mr. Brown of his own words from when he was a candidate?

Thus far West Vincent has left me alone.  I do feel, however, that they need to be reminded of freedom of speech and opinion….and that political satire is as old as dirt.

residents of west vincent: fight for your right to speak at public meetings

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Chickenman has sent out a rather important e-mail within the last hour.  Allow me to share:

Hi
I received Monday evening’s Agenda for West Vincent Township. It looks interesting.

Especially # 11 Meeting Policy. According to David Brown, this is an issue where the Supervisors want to limit Public comment from the audience. The Supervisors say time and time again that they want more people to attend the meetings so that they participate in what goes on. Now that the room is filling up and people are commenting, asking questions and pointing out the conflicts, contradictions and mistruths of the Supervisors, it is time to muzzle the mouths of the people that dare speak up. What the Supervisors say and what they mean is two entirely different issues. I recommend going to the meeting on Monday night at 7:30.
To see my previous mailings please click on http://tinyurl.com/westvincentinfos  As usual, if you want to be on or off my list, or have some comments or suggestions, or know someone who would like to be on the list, please let me know.  Feel free to forward this email on to anyone you think might be interested.   Especially though, if you don’t want to continue to receive my mails, please tell me, it will be done.  Just hit reply to this email or write to chestercountynews@gmail.com

Why Supervisor David Brown, how very Lawyer err Lower Merion Township of you.  Is that where you learned this?  It was from whence came you, is it not?  Before you adopted the mantle of country gent?

This is wrong.   Public participation is a hallmark of American  government  and politics, like it or not.  To muzzle the public to me = government with a huge problem = NOT good government.

Take where I have spent the last 30 some odd years: Lower Merion Township on the Main Line.   At the commissioners meetings (you have supervisors, they commissioners) the public is often quite constrained on not only what they can say, but how long they can say it.

Generally speaking, you get 3 minutes to speak as an individual and 5 if you are representing a group or organization.   You are not supposed to address figures like the Township Solicitor and the Township Manager, and if you do that, you are generally chided like a child in elementary school.  You are not allowed to have back and forth conversation on a topic with the commissioners.

Basically you speak and they have a timer on you.  When the buzzer sounds, you are done.  If a commissioner chooses to respond to something a member of the public says, they can say what ever they want, and you can’t respond back.  No matter what they say. I have attended a couple of public meetings where they have decided there was to be no public comment whatsoever.  In essence the public was allowed to watch, thereby making the meeting open, but there was not public comment.  And in Lower Merion, there are recurring issues with sunshine.  The commissioners, however, have no restraints on what they can say, how long they can say it.

Is that what you in West Vincent want?  I have been told by long-term residents that things in your local government were not so bad when Proctor Wetherill was alive.  I know little about him, other that it is a fine Philadelphia name. I found some history on him on Ancestry.com :

So, is this what Proctor Wetherill would want for his community if still alive? Would he have allowed an eminent domain attempt on Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show Grounds?

And for just a minute, let me share another bit of interesting:

Developer, Officials Disagree On Future Of Evergreen Farm The Project Would Keep The Trees. The Pines, Not Native To The Township, Are Ecologically Incorrect.

August 02, 1992 | By Nancy Petersen, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

So.  Who were your supervisors back then, West Vincent?   People in communities all over would love developers that wanted to actually preserve trees, so this seems nuts to an outsider like myself.

Back to the present: David Brown, formerly of Lawyer Merion Township, who wants to limit public comment at meetings.  Can it be supposed they think you all too ill-informed to participate in your own government?  Good residents are seen and not heard?  I find it curious that in West Vincent less seems to be more with this township as far as posting things on their pretty and I am sure over-priced website.  Here’s the link I found to February 27th’s agenda which is in draft form.

Chickenman would like you all to be reminded that  tomorrow night, Monday, at 7:30 PM, there is a West Vincent Township Supervisor’s meeting at the West Vincent Township Building 729 St. Matthews Road Chester Springs, PA.

I am going to cross-post a topic from the SAC site having to do with Radnor Township.  There is an issue or two brewing between Radnor Township residents and Villanova University.  Here’s the LINK, and the reason I am doing this is to point out that there are local municipalities in SE PA that actually try to do the best by residents.  Seriously, Radnor Township residents got lucky when Dave Bashore was exited and Bob Zienkowski  was hired as Township Manager.

And while we are speaking about Radnor, let’s talk about what I know about their policy on public speaking.  In Radnor, they not only do not limit residents as to speaking at meetings, they also allow interaction.  The public can ask questions of township commissioners and public officials.  Mind you, I have seen them corral people once in a while who were kinda filibustering (and it was darn entertaining public access television viewing), and some joke their current Board of Commissioners President would have five-minute meetings with everything decided ahead of time if it were legal (he likes to run meetings like a geriatric Speed Racer) , but Radnor (generally speaking) are among the most encouraging municipalities when it comes to public participation and public comment.

I can’t help but wonder what West Vincent is so nervous about that they would wish to limit public comment? It’s where you the good people of West Vincent call home, and if I were a resident I would fight this tooth and nail just like eminent domain.  And out of curiosity, how can you legally recall any or all of your supervisors and all that good stuff?

 

as the west vincent churns…..

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They are taking names in West Vincent, apparently.  I am a ChickenMan aficionado.   What he does takes courage some days, and since I have blogged a few years now over a few issues I can appreciate that.

It seems that ChickenMan follows the credo of the truth is your best defense, only his local yokels want all to be rosy in the alfalfa patch and he upsets their apple carts on occasion. (As long as he doesn’t throw their goats off their milk, I suppose it’s all good, right?)

When you blog, there will always be a turd out there who doesn’t like what you have to say.  And they will “challenge” you to their higher moral playground of delusion, because instead of doing the common sense duh thing of stopping reading a blog or e-mail newsletters or whatever (it’s not compulsory reading, after all), they want YOU to stop.  Why?  So they can be more comfortable in their own skin, that’s why.  But hey, if they are living clean, whatcha’ got to worry about?

Anyway, I am one of the people on Chickenman’s e-mail list, and I got an update a little bit ago that says (and I quote):

 

Hi….And while you are about it, ask yourself why I dare not tell you who I am, or who the people are who help me?  Would it not be a whole lot easier if I could openly tell you who I am and who the people are that I work with?  I could be famous (!!!) for running this list.   Why do almost all the people who write to me ask that I hide their identity?  Why are most of people who oppose the current administration scared to say who they are?  Really, it should not be like this.
David Brown recently wrote and suggested I should reveal to him my mailing list. He actually wrote  Here’s a challenge: let Chickenman publish his e-mail list, so others can participate in a fair discussion of any issue he chooses. 
I replied Anyone can write to me.  Most letters get printed.  Now if it seems that most letters are supportive, that is because most of the letters I get are supportive.  I have already stated that a bigger proportion of non supportive letters are published compared to supportive letters.
I dare not publish my mailing list.  I have seen what happens to people who are known to be my supporters.  I will never publish my list.  My subscribers addresses are safe and will not be published. But if I did publish we may find that if I do that innocent ladies are accused of running a brothel, or that efficient businessmen are accused of shoddy work, or that others are accused of not living at the address where they sleep.
The first of my theories above is a guess.  The second two have actually happened………….
Your identity is even more secure than is mine.  And after 205 emails no one has yet found me…………………
To see my previous mailings please click on http://tinyurl.com/westvincentinfos    As usual, if you want to be on or off my list, or have some comments or suggestions, or know someone who would like to be on the list, please let me know.  Feel free to forward this email on to anyone you think might be interested.   Especially though, if you don’t want to continue to receive my mails, please tell me. I’ll take you off the list immediately.   Just hit reply to this email or write to chestercountynews@gmail.com
Best wishes
Chickenman

Ok, so I am new to this rodeo.  I became interested when West Vincent tried to give residents eminent domain for private gain for Christmas.  Until that point, I had tuned in and out, occasionally being regaled with tales of West Vincent silliness from people I know.   But thanks to eminent domain, I am now a ChickenMan devotee.  And apparently so are several media outlets because I see lots more on what was only known as sleepy, bucolic West Vincent to us “foreigners”.  (Of course if that jackass master plan in West Vincent goes through, it will no longer be either sleepy or bucolic, it will be over-developed and ruined.  But hey, if they think the drive thru modern Eagle is a pleasure cruise, to each their own, right?)

But I got off on a tangent.

So who is this David Brown?  One of the Supervisors in West Vincent.  He’s one of the three bears – the other two are named Clare Quinn and Ken Miller. 

I used to buy cheese from Ken Miller’s Birchrun Hills Farm at Farm to City Markets and other places until eminent domain came calling at the Ludwig Corner Horse Show Grounds.  Now, I couldn’t in good conscience buy the cheese.  Truthfully, I bought to try to support local PA and well, his isn’t the best anyway, so it hasn’t been so hard to give up. Hails Family Farm (Wyalusing), Shellbark  Hollow Farm (West Chester) , and Canter Hill Farm (Malvern)…and well if you want to taste heaven try Yellow Springs Farm’s goat cheese AND they have a goat cheese CSA too….

Again, the tangents…sorry…back to this odd request from a Supervisor and purported proponent of good government.

Is he that neurotic that he needs to know who is on the list? Who cares? After all if he hasn’t done anything wrong and everything is peachy keen and coming up roses in West Vincent, why does it matter?

But maybe he needs a good mailing list for spam or something.

I am going to suggest that MORE people sign up for ChickenMan – he must be doing something right if a country supervisor neeeeeeeds his mailing list.  You can visit his website http://chickenman.medianewsonline.com/ and can e-mail Chester County’s Favorite Chicken at chestercountynews@gmail.com .

When government officials keep clucking….it’s time to keep reading….such pettiness in government is highly counter-productive.  I am glad I am but an observing auslander.  I might be branded a witch or something….

Good government is as good government does, Supervisor Brown.  In my humble opinion (allowed by what? Oh yes, we got that as one of those pesky inalienable rights courtesy of our founding fathers), you all need to knock the warped Mayberry crap off.  But hey, I thought your name was familiar and a lookee on your website shows where you learned your “old school rules”: Lower Merion.  411? They do things a little differently now in the Republican Committee of Lower Merion and Narberth.  They have a thing about sunshine and transparency.   Old school, back door, borderline bully politics are going out of fashion…..

Just sayin’…not accusing…just sayin’