The Politics of Property Rights Education: Partnering or Going Alone subtitle: When Bad Things Happe

1
The Politics of Property Rights Education
Partnering or Going Alone? ------------(subtitle
When Bad Things Happen to Good Programming)

• Gary Taylor Alan Vandehaar
• ISU Extension Community Economic Development
• gtaylor_at_iastate.edu
• alanv_at_iastate.edu

2
Topic

• Context and chronology of the eminent domain
  issue
• The 21st Century Extension System
• Partners
• Professional Roles
• Suggestions from unlikely places

3
Amendment V, US Constitution

• .nor shall private property be taken for public
  use, without just compensation.
• Most takings litigation has focused on issues
  other than what constitutes public use
• Regulations as takings
• Physical invasions as takings

4
What constitutes public use?

• Little legal debate
• Public projects
• Roads, water plants, city halls, airports,
• Public access
• Parks, recreational trails
• Public purpose
• Elimination of slum, blight conditions

5
Kelo v. New London, CT

• US Supreme Court, June 23, 2005.
• Is economic development alone, absent showing
  that condemned properties are blighted or slums,
  sufficient public use?

6
Question was not new

• Hawaii Housing Auth. v. Midkiff (1984) state
  law designed to break up historical land
  oligopoly by condemnation and transfer to
  tenants.
• Uses are public if there is public advantage or
  benefit, even though the property is not used by
  the general public.
• this Court will not substitute its judgment
  for a legislature's judgment as to what
  constitutes a public use

7
Kelo v. New London, CT

• In a 5-4 decision, US Supreme Court affirmed that
  condemnation of property for economic development
  purposes is sufficient public use to satisfy
  Fifth Amendment.
• public use jurisprudenceaffords legislatures
  broad latitude in determining what public needs
  justify the use of the takings power.
• we cannot say that public ownership is the sole
  method of promoting the public purposes of
  community redevelopment projects.

8
Justice OConnor Dissent

• To reason, as the Court does, that the
  incidental public benefits resulting from the
  subsequent ordinary use of private property
  render economic development takings for public
  use is to wash out any distinction between
  private and public use of property and thereby
  effectively to delete the words for public use
  from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

9
Justice OConnor Dissent

• The specter of condemnation hangs over all
  property. Nothing is to prevent the state from
  replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any
  home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a
  factory.

10
Kelo

• Decision not surprising
• Public backlash surprising(?)

11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Extension Public Issues Education to the Rescue!
15
The 21st Century Extension System

• Academic Neutrality
• The mission of Extension, to enable people to
  improve their lives and communities through
  learning partnerships that put knowledge to
  work, can be sustained only in an atmosphere of
  academic neutrality.
• ECOP (2002), The Extension System A Vision for
  the 21st Century.

16
The 21st Century Extension System

• Partnerships
• Engage with communities and organizations
  through open, flexible and expanded partnerships
  that share resources, respond to needs and
  expectations, recognize and honor contributions.
• ECOP (2002), The Extension System A Vision for
  the 21st Century.

17
Potential partners

• Iowa League of Cities (ILC)
• Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC)
• Iowa Chapter American Planning Assn.
• 1,000 Friends of Iowa
• Whos missing?

18
Meeting 9.8.06 ISUE, ILC, ISAC

• ISUE only ground rules
• Fair and balanced
• Open to public
• ILC ground rule
• Meeting of stakeholders (not a public forum)
• ISAC flexible

19
Tentative plan

• Hosted workshop for state legislators with fair
  and balanced panel of speakers, or
• Hosted workshop for partner memberships
• ISUE role Content expert (host) and process
  expert (meeting convener/facilitator)
• Patton Blaine (2001), Public Issues Education
  Exploring Extensions Role, JOE
• ILC to confirm

20
Des Moines Register 9.12.05
21
DM Register Letters to the Editor 9.17.05
22
Des Moines Register 9.20.05
23
Iowa League of Cities Release 9.25.05
24
Des Moines Register Op-Ed 9.27.06
25
Des Moines Register 1.19.06
26
Des Moines Register 1.29.05

• Sunday Op-Ed page
• "Condemnation Power Helps Iowa's Cities Flower"
• "Calm Down Law Protects Property Rights"

27
DM Register - Letters to Editor 2.5.06

• Telling me that only 4 percent of eminent-domain
  actions in Iowa since 1999 involved condemnation
  of private property for economic development
  doesn't make me feel any better either. Using
  your numbersthere have been 30 condemnations
  for economic development.This is 30 times too
  many for me.

• The Register's editorial board advises Iowa
  residents that they should Calm Down I take
  issue with that advice. .This is an aberration
  of the principles and vision of America and must
  be loudly and vociferously addressed. Any effort
  on the part of the Legislature to tighten
  constraints on eminent domain and encourage
  public scrutiny on each and every case is
  absolutely essential to deter abuse and loose
  interpretation of the law.

28
In the meantime.

• September
• Hesitation
• Extreme hesitation
• October
• Duck and cover
• November
• On our own
• January
• No longer informing the debate (the issue that
  got away)

29
Observations on partnering on public issues
education

• We can draw lessons from negotiation/ conflict
  resolution practice
• Timing is everything
• Understand your goal
• Recognize their alternatives

30
1. Timing

• Conflict Spirals (First four phases)
• Problem emerges.
• Sides form as controversy grows.
• Positions harden as parties become rigid in their
  perspectives.
• Communications stop and parties become
  adversarial.
• Carpenter Kennedy (1988), Managing Public
  Disputes

31
Timing analysis

• Problem emerged June 23
• BUT
• Sides formed and positions hardened in the 1990s
  with property rights activism
• Self-assessment B-

32
2. What is your goal?

• Patton Blaine (2001) identify Type III public
  issues as those where neither the underlying
  problem nor the solution are currently clear.
• Does anyone know what Iowa ED law really says?
• Do we know how often its been used?
• Or for what purposes?

33
Goal (cont.)

• Extensions roles in Type III issues
• Conduct issue research.
• Frame issue in public terms facilitate public
  deliberation.

34
Goal analysis

• We remained flexible, open.
• Relaxed ground rules, but remained dedicated to
  neutrality.
• Self-assessment A-

35
3. Recognize their alternatives

• If a party perceives a better outcome from
  non-participation than participation, the party
  will not participate.
• Isenhart Spangle (2000), Collaborative
  Approaches to Resolving Conflict.
• Ury (1991), Getting Past No.

36
Alternatives analysis

• ILC believed better off not poking the stick in
  the bees nest.
• ISUE did a lousy job of reframing that position.
• Self-assessment D

37
Final ThoughtPartner or Go Alone?

• Public issues education should always trump, even
  if it means going alone.
• Do early analysis of the issue and the politics.
• Keep partners informed, but dont wait around.

38
Your analysis?Your advice?
39
More Kelo
40
Kelo v. New London, CT

• 1990 after decades of decline, NL declared a
  distressed city by Connecticut Department of
  Economic development
• 1996 NL loses 2,000 government jobs with
  closure of Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
• 1998 NL unemployment rate double state average.
  
• 1998 population of NL stands at 24,000 lowest
  since 1920.

41
Kelo v. New London, CT

• 1998 State Bond Commission authorizes bonds to
  support planning and development activities and
  property acquisition by NL Development
  Corporation in Fort Trumbull area.
• 1998 Pfizer announces plans to develop global
  research facility on site in NL, adjacent to Fort
  Trumbull State Park (completed in 2001). NLDC
  conveys property to Pfizer for facility.

42
Kelo v. New London, CT

• 2000 Development plan for Fort Trumbull area
  approved authorizes exercise of eminent domain
  to acquire properties for redevelopment.
• NLDC institutes condemnation proceedings on Fort
  Trumbull area properties, including those of
  Kelos and Derys.

43
(No Transcript)
44
(No Transcript)
45

• Fort Trumbull State Park Coast Guard station
• NLDC redevelopment area
• Pfizer holdings
• Municipal Sewage treatment plant
• Kelo, et. al., properties

46

• YELLOW
• NLDC holdings
• BLUE
• Pfizer holdings
• GREEN
• Park support area
• ORANGE
• Kelo, et al properties
• FORT TRUMBULL

47
Kelo - Supporters

• Political process (vote them out) is better
  check on ED abuse than the courts.
• Without ED, urban revitalization is impossible.
  There will always be holdouts.
• Without urban revitalization, pressure to develop
  agricultural land is greater.

48
Kelo - Detractors

• Poor middle class most vulnerable to eminent
  domain abuse by government and well-connected
  corporations.
• Every home, small business, farm would generate
  more taxes as shopping center or office building.
• Empties public use phrase in Fifth Amendment of
  meaning.

49
State legislatures respond

• Redefine public use (5)
• More specific, rigorous procedures (9)
• Prohibit use of ED for economic development (12)
• Redefine what constitutes just compensation
  (11)
• Limit use to blighted properties (7)

50
We do know

• There have been abuses around the country.
• Governments need to exercise great care, careful
  planning.
• We shouldnt throw out the baby with the bath.