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Critics Hit Trump With Huge Accusation, So He Drops A Truth Bomb That Puts Them In Their Place
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was hit with some hard questions about his stance on government seizures of private property while filing to be on the ballot in New Hampshire’s primary.
The issue of eminent domain has surrounded Trump in his opponents’ campaign materials for several months. Reporters from the Washington Examiner took on Trump regarding the issue during his press conference on Wednesday. Trump said they have his views all wrong.
“I am all for private property rights. There’s nobody who wants property taken away less than I do, believe me. I would lose a lot of money if my property were taken away,” Trump said.
The billionaire businessman said there are times when eminent domain is necessary. Those times are primarily when government needs to update its infrastructure. He added that projects, like the Keystone pipeline, require use of eminent domain because they undoubtedly will cross various private lands.
“But when you’re building a road, when you’re building a highway, when you’re building whatever it is you’re building from a municipal standpoint, you may need a corner of a piece of property,” he said.
He also said that eminent domain is sometimes needed for development, which adds needed jobs to the community.
“From a development standpoint, when you have a factory that is going to leave town and the town is doing badly. Or you have a factory or a plant or something that is coming into town,” he said. “Everybody wants it. But you need a corner of a piece of property someplace.”
Trump went on to say that property owners get paid “a tremendous amount of money.”
The GOP top-tiered candidate has the shadow of eminent domain following him because of a 1994 Atlantic City, N.J., case where the state attempted to condemn the home of a retired boarding house owner in order for his company to build a parking lot for limousines.
Vera Coking and her husband bought their home on the boardwalk long before casinos dotted the beach. They ran it as a boarding house until retirement. Coking, a widow, continued to live in the house after her husband died.
According to Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that assisted in representing Coking in the court case, said Trump wanted her property and two others for development of his casino property. Specifically, he wanted the property for a parking lot. The three property owners, including Coking, an Italian restaurant owner and the owner of a gold store, refused to sell. Coking was offered close to $1 million for her property.
The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), a state agency, sent Coking a letter in 1994 saying her property was appraised for $251,250 and she would have to accept the offer or the agency would file a lawsuit in Superior Court to take it from her under eminent domain. The other two property owners got similar letters.
One of the owners, Vincent Sabatini, said the agency’s $700,000 offer wouldn’t cover expenses of starting a new restaurant somewhere else.
“I’ve been here for 32 years, and they want to give it to Trump. I don’t want their money. If they left me alone, I’d be happy and sell a few spaghettis,” Sabatini said.
Peter Banin, a Russian immigrant, and his brother had paid $500,000 for their building a few months earlier and opened their gold shop. CRDA offered them only $174,000.
“I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?” Banin said.
The Supreme Court sided with property owners out of a technicality with the CRDA’s ability to fund the project. An appeals court reversed the decision. The case was finally won in another court, in part because not owning these properties didn’t stop the casino project. Construction crews had surrounded Coking’s property with grass on one side and parking lots around the rest of the property.
The other issues affecting the decision in favor of Coking were that the property would be used to park limousines and that isn’t considered “for public use” and that CRDA was going to turn the property over to another private individual.
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/critics-hit-trump-with-huge-accusation-so-he-drops-a-truth-bomb-that-puts-them-in-their-place/
