World, National and State News has been so dramatic as to leave the Red Plan controversy in the dust. As one example the I-35 mega project’s potential shut down will overshadow almost everything else for a time if it should come to pass. I say this almost in apology for my continued harping on Red Plan details.
But then again, the Red Planner’s thoughtless and self righteous bull dozing is emblematic of many of the larger issues revolving around finance, credit card debt and taxation. The Red Planners made a huge public investment without public buy-in and even now grouse that it had to be done because they surely would have lost a public vote. (Its not their fault that the district has lost a thousand and more students since the beginning of the Red Plan’s implementation!) This is sour grapes on a par with every Red Plan post I’ve offered up for the past five years rolled up together.
So, here’s one more post to add to all my others, larger issues notwithstanding. The School Board has, on the eve of Dr. Dixon’s departure, reneged on a promise not to use eminent domain. All you have to do to see how shabbily the District has treated Mr. Kuiti is to put his name in this blog’s search engine.
I’m rather glad that Scott forced the District to prove how shallow and insincere its former promise was. It will cost him. He is certain to get less money than he would have had he simply gone quietly. And this is the point… the District always had the right to employ eminent domain and used it as a threat to bludgeon people into selling out to the Red Plan. How is this possible?
Federal law gives the District almost unfettered power to do this because “education” is deemed to be of such a critical public purpose that no one is allowed to interfere with it. And yet, because the public has such a visceral revulsion to any government seizure of property the School District has recoiled from using it until now. Except that from the beginning the District has relied on eminent domain to chase hundreds of people away from their properties. Anyone with competent legal advice would have quickly discovered that the District’s power was almost unassailable. But for political consumption the School Board promised eminent domain would not be used and bragged for years that they had not resorted to it. But, of course they did. Until Kuiti not a single angry homeowner stood in the District’s way under the threat of the District’s power to take their land and take it cheaply if possible.
One ironic consequence of the District’s reluctance to use eminent domain on the unpopular Red Plan was that the District almost always had to pay property owners far in excess of market value had the District simply employed eminent domain. That meant that we taxpayers took an additional hit to buy land. The District has had to shell out far more than they originally planned or budgeted for property acquisition. This is yet one more reason that the District had to find ways to tap into the operating budget to pay for the Red Plan.
Finally, with the “quick” taking of Scott Kuiti’s land the District has finally gotten a bargain basement price for the last tiny parcel of real estate that stood in the way of their grand plan.
Poor Scott. Poor us!
