it is with great pride that I promote this article on Scott Mahan's and Ken Haskin's participation in the dedication of the Kelo House with Susette, IJ, and others.... many thanks to Main Line Times for the article:
This weekend, some area residents traveled to Connecticut to remember that "little pink house."It wasn't one of the little pink houses made famous in a John Mellencamp song, but one that became a symbol in the fight over eminent domain for private gain. The property became a national centerpiece in the eminent domain battle when the house's owner, Susette Kelo, lost a 2005 United States Supreme Court decision that gave the City of New London the ability to use eminent domain to take her house and several others in the Fort Trumbull section of New London and turn it over for private development. Essentially, the court said it was up to the individual states to determine eminent domain.
"After she lost that case in 2005, it created a backlash across the country that backfired on them, and several individual states have since passed their own legislation," said Scott Mahan, vice president of the Save Ardmore Collation, the group that formed in 2005 to fight eminent domain in Lower Merion.
This weekend, Mahan and fellow Save Ardmore Collation member Ken Haskin traveled to New London for a ceremony to both recognize the third anniversary of the Kelo decision June 23 and for a ribbon cutting at Kelo's pink house.
Although Kelo was forced to sell her house following the court's decision, it was bought by another New London resident and moved to a new location. Kelo has since moved out of New London. The house sits about a mile from where it had originally stood. A large sign on the side designates it "The Kelo House."
At the same time the Kelo case was going through the court system, Lower Merion was considering using eminent domain to take several buildings along the north side of Lancaster Avenue from Rittenhouse Place toward Station Avenue. The site would have been turned over to a developer who was to build a large facility with new stores in the front and a large parking garage in the rear.
Residents formed the Save Ardmore Coalition in early 2005 to fight the township's plans.
Just as in in the Kelo case, township officials claimed the new development would increase tax revenues for Lower Merion.
Since the backlash of the Kelo case, the laws in 42 states have been changed to make it much more difficult for local governments to take private property for economic development.
"SAC was instrumental in changing Pennsylvania state law, and it had a lot to do with [the Kelo] case because that's what created the momentum to allow everybody to get it done at the state level," Mahan said.
Members of the SAC testified before state officials in Philadelphia and Harrisburg who helped strengthen state laws on eminent domain.
"[The Kelo decision] created a revolution of sorts for property rights," said Mahan, vice president of the SAC.
After a new board was elected, the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners also passed a motion banning the use of eminent domain under the guise of economic development.
"Because [Kelo] lost that case, people began realizing that it could happen to anybody," Mahan said. "So I think it was instrumental in helping us in our battle."
According to Haskin, the neighborhood in which Kelo's house was located was Fort Trumbull, and therein lies an irony.
"It was called Fort Trumbull because it's right in front of a fort that was there to protect the United States from other people taking our land," Haskin said. "The irony of ironies is that our people took her land away from her."
Haskin said though many states have passed laws that make it more difficult for governments to take property, there is still much more to do.
"Even though 42 states have passed legislation that's limited this kind of thing, not all of them have," said Haskin, "and in [Kelo's] state, they are still suffering from this."
"... Fort Trumbull [was] a fort that was there to protect the United States from other people taking our land. The irony of ironies is that our people took her land away from her."
The Kelo House by Scott Mahan
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati