More insanity in New London*(**)
And you thought that the seizure of private family dwellings to let a large, and privately owned, pharmaceutical company have cheap land to build a laboratory facility was crazy. Now, thanks to the Fairfield County Weekly we hear that having their houses seized may actually only be the beginning of the troubles of the Kelo Seven. Apparently, not quite content to just make these people temporarily homeless, the city of New London is doing everything in their power to make that situation permanent.
First, they have decided to follow the law in such a way that is most beneficial to them, of course, meaning that the 'just compensation' that is required by the law will be based on the 2000 property assessment (the year this whole mess started) which is far below the current market value. And as if that wouldn't be insult enough, and if true would require an impeachment of the New London city council, they are now charging the residents who fought the (now legalized) theft of their homes rent from the date the seizures would have originally taken place. Yes I said it R E N T! That means that many of these people may end up owing the town money for having the audacity of living in their own homes while fighting to not have them taken from them.
That's pretty much all I can say on the subject without blowing a gasket but you can check out Dafydd's take on the subject over at Captain's Quarters for more.
*As Dafydd points out, as of the writing of this post the only source for this information appears to be The Fairfield Weekly. So until there is some additional independent confirmation of this, there is still a chance at least part of this was based on some type of misunderstanding either on the reporters part or the people he talked to. We can only hope.
** Update: Jeff, over at Protein Wisdom links to this USA Today article which repeats the claims made in the Fairfield Weekly report. So it looks like the possibility of these poor people being charged 10's of thousands of dollars of back rent (or more) for living in homes that they owned, until a SCOTUS ruling last month, are indeed true.
First, they have decided to follow the law in such a way that is most beneficial to them, of course, meaning that the 'just compensation' that is required by the law will be based on the 2000 property assessment (the year this whole mess started) which is far below the current market value. And as if that wouldn't be insult enough, and if true would require an impeachment of the New London city council, they are now charging the residents who fought the (now legalized) theft of their homes rent from the date the seizures would have originally taken place. Yes I said it R E N T! That means that many of these people may end up owing the town money for having the audacity of living in their own homes while fighting to not have them taken from them.
That's pretty much all I can say on the subject without blowing a gasket but you can check out Dafydd's take on the subject over at Captain's Quarters for more.
*As Dafydd points out, as of the writing of this post the only source for this information appears to be The Fairfield Weekly. So until there is some additional independent confirmation of this, there is still a chance at least part of this was based on some type of misunderstanding either on the reporters part or the people he talked to. We can only hope.
** Update: Jeff, over at Protein Wisdom links to this USA Today article which repeats the claims made in the Fairfield Weekly report. So it looks like the possibility of these poor people being charged 10's of thousands of dollars of back rent (or more) for living in homes that they owned, until a SCOTUS ruling last month, are indeed true.
posted by Bic at 8:32 a.m.
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