Saturday - August 06, 2005

Land Snatch In DC

After the recent Supreme Court ruling, the District of Columbia proceeded at warp speed to acquire land for a new baseball stadium which will be home to the Washington Nationals. The team is currently playing in RFK Stadium. Evidently, that wasn’t good enough. Yesterday, a federal judge slapped down the owners of the property in question and said the city could proceed. He also had some nasty remarks about the city’s methods ....

(WASHINGTON POST)—A federal judge yesterday declined to issue an emergency 30-day injunction that would have stopped the District from purchasing or taking 33 properties it needs to build a baseball stadium in Southeast Washington.

U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts said the three property owners seeking the injunction failed to show that they would be irreparably harmed if the city was allowed to proceed in trying to buy the parcels required for the stadium project. He said the group also failed to convince him that it would prevail in its lawsuit, which alleges that the city’s efforts to acquire the property are illegal.

“The loss of property is easily compensated by monetary damages,” Roberts said. “Clearly, the city council has concluded a stadium is in the public interest. . . . The public interest is not served by blocking the city’s effort to build the stadium.”

The judge’s decision means that the District can continue working to meet its deadline, under an agreement with Major League Baseball, to obtain the 33 properties by the end of the year. His ruling also suggested that it would be futile for the property owners to pursue the case.

The plaintiffs argued that the District was violating a city law that places a $165 million cap on the amount that the city can spend for land acquisition, infrastructure and environmental remediation for the stadium project. They contended that land acquisition estimates by Natwar M. Gandhi, the District’s chief financial officer, were too low because the city failed to do individual property appraisals as required by the legislation.

But the judge also chided the District during yesterday’s two-hour hearing, saying it had not explained to the owners the city’s timetable for trying to obtain their property. The owners said they feared that they would get a city offer with no warning and have only 24 hours to accept it or face condemnation. If the city and an owner do not reach agreement on a purchase price, the city can take the land through eminent-domain proceedings.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/06/2005 at 07:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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