Long Branch residents given ‘extra rocks for slingshot’

In a recent Atlanticville story about the latest eminent domain takings in Long Branch ("Council moves to acquire Abbotsford Avenue properties"), city Financial Director Ronald Mehlhorn Sr. is quoted as saying of the latest private property takings: "It is a redevelopment area, and we are just clearing the site." He also is reported to admit there are no specific plans for this site. Accordingly, one must question how the city can possibly justify these property takings are in the interest of greater "public use" when no such "use" is known, much less actually planned.

For the people along the waterfront and anyone else opposed to government riding roughshod over our constitutional right to private property, we can only hope someone has the courage to challenge the constitutionality of New Jersey eminent domain law, especially as appears to be predicated — at least in part — on a just-reversed Michigan Supreme Court decision.

Earlier this month, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed its oft-cited and controversial 1981 "Poletown" decision, a ruling that is largely viewed as the catalyst for eminent domain abuses across the country. This decision redefined the legal interpretation of what constitutes "public use," as it was the first time a state high court ruled condemned private property could be turned over to another private party or enterprise for its own use under the guise of the greater community’s general economic benefit.

In its opinion on the case, the Michigan Supreme Court justices decreed that the proposed private property condemnations at issue in the case under which they agreed to review their 23-year-old ruling "do not pass constitutional muster under (Michigan’s) 1963 constitution." They also stated (the) plan to transfer the rights to the condemned property to private parties was "in a manner wholly inconsistent with the common understanding of ‘public use’ at the time our constitution was ratified."

New Jersey is just one of many states whose highest courts have cited Poletown to rationalize its own private-to-private eminent domain seizures. Now that the precedent-setting ruling cited by New Jersey has been deemed unconstitutional, the people of Long Branch and elsewhere have clearly been handed a few extra rocks for their slingshot. How we will use them in our David vs. Goliath fight with city hall is up to us.

Jacqueline Condie

Long Branch