After winning one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in my lifetime, Pfizer is pulling out of New London, Conn. They’re leaving a vacant lot where they worked hard to destroy a neighborhood. Of course it’s not just Pfizer’s fault. Who knows what shady deals got the local city officials behind it?
The court decision, Kelo v. New London, said basically that the the government can take your property and give it to a privatedeveloper. It greatly expanded the right of eminent domain.
The good news is that in response to the court case many states have passed laws against such egregious abuse of government power. Too bad my state (NY) isn’t one of them.
Here’s the story in the New York Times.
I can't believe that we the consumer have less power than most government or even major cooperation's do over how we spend out money and what they can do to take our money it's just ridiculous and something should be done about the situation.
Tragic, to say the least. It is actually kind of good this happened. Now maybe they can reign in eminent domain.
That is a silver lining. But it still bothers me that it's constitutional.
And they're not reigning it in here in New York. In fact, they've used and are continuing to use it in the Atlantic Yards project.