Urgent Prop 98 event

Dear Liberty Lover,

It seems that even before our first official meeting, we have a chance to make a difference on an important issue - eminent domain abuse.

As you may already know, almost three years ago the Supreme Court of the U.S. outraged people across the country with their decision in Kelo v. New London City in Connecticut. The local government wanted to transfer property from one private owner to another because the latter would build a development, thus paying higher property taxes, thus benefitting the community.

The high court however made it clear in their decision that state and local governments were free to pass more restrictive laws prohibiting such a travesty. According to Ilya Somin from the George Mason University School of Law, forty states and the federal government have passed post-Kelo legislation to curb eminent domain abuse. In November, 2006 Californians narrowly defeated Proposition 90 after an agressive ad campaign by opponents scared people into believing it would cripple local governments and increase taxes.

Now Proposition 98 is on the ballot and we can do our part to help it pass. This coming Tuesday, May 6th, the Davis City Council has a item on their consent calendar that would approve the drafting of an anti-Prop 98 resolution. Having taken some time to get to know the current City Council a little, I think it is possible to defeat this item. I will move to have it removed from the consent calendar which will allow public comment. Being an election season, and with three Council seats up for grabs, they will want to please the public. I suspect Souza, Saylor and Asmundson might be convinced to reject this proposal which would result in a 3-2 vote in our favor.

Even if we don't defeat this agenda item, we will have made our case in front of the cameras broadcasting the hearing on Davis Community Television's Channel 15 -- one of the stations that broadcast Richard Field's Libertarian Counterpoint. It will amount to free advertising and the more people we have testify, the better the chances we will influence not only the Council, but the voters watching at home.

I have contacted the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to see if they can send someone to comment also.

The meeting starts at 6 pm but ceremonial presentations are on the agenda before the consent calendar so if you can't make it right at 6, don't worry about it. For more information about Prop 98, see http://www.hjta.org/y....