Given the issue of eminent domain and Great Valley, we thought we would promote this article on eminent domain and schools from Camden, NJ....we're only posting an excerpt, so be sure to click over to the Inquirer for the complete text...

Monica Yant Kinney | N.J. made mess of this laundromat
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist

Six months ago, Alexander Sterin was running a laundromat in East Camden with 6,000 square feet of fluffing and folding. He paid his workers and his taxes, and still had plenty of quarters left to support his family.

Today, Sterin is a financial mess and the Wash House is abandoned. Graffiti covers the walls, weeds wind through the parking lot. Men loiter near the boarded-up entrance, ignoring the signs that read No Trespassing: Property of the State of New Jersey.

For this, Sterin - and Camden - have the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp. (SCC) to blame.

The SCC condemned Sterin's property and forced him out of business, but has yet to pay him for his troubles.

And so much for the urgency of having sheriff's officers kick customers out of the place in March: The SCC swears demolition will begin this winter, but officials at the Camden School District say the SCC remains so engulfed in its mismanagement scandals that groundbreaking for Dudley Elementary is at least 18 months away, if it ever happens.

"The project is on hold," district spokesman Bart Leff says. "The SCC squandered the money before they could build it."

Sterin, a native of Russia and now a naturalized citizen, is left to marvel that such an un-American experience could befall him here, in the home of the free.

"In Russia, there wouldn't be a conversation - they'd just take your property," Sterin told me last week. "This is worse. They look you in your face, smile, and tell you it will be all right." He's fighting the state in court.

Michael Sterin scrapped med school to help his old man run laundromats on both sides of the river. Despite a few bumps with liens and civil suits, it was a profitable partnership. The Sterins say the Wash House, inside an old KFC at Federal Street and Marlton Pike, made $30,000 a month.

No wonder they cringed when a consultant informed them the SCC was seizing the spot through eminent domain to build a school.

..."It's been a nightmare," his other attorney, John Penberthy, told me. "We're dealing with a bureaucracy set up to acquire land and build schools. They don't give a flying you-know-what about the little guy they're taking from."