ALDERMAN SAYS NO ONE ON STREET WILL BE FORECE TO SELL

Residents fight Bauer on blighting
By: Shawn Clubb

Southwest City Journal
July 20,2005
Pages A1 and B4

Bob Corbett responds to Bauer's charges below the article.

A group of Dogtown residents showed up last week at City Hall intent on keeping Alderman Tom Bauer from blighting a man's home.

Bauer ultimately did not include the property in one of three blighting bills he put before the Neighborhood Development Committee, but the residents still used the meeting as a means to vent their frustration toward Bauer.

The spared property is located on Fairmount Avenue. It was included with three other properties on Fairmount Avenue, four on Prather Avenue and one on Famous Avenue in Board Bill 146, which Bauer is offering in order to blight the properties and abate taxes under a redevelopment plan.

"This is a routine blighting bill for tax abatement only," Bauer told The committee.

But a group of about two dozen 24th ward residents had come to the meeting worried that the blighting was just the first step towards the property being taken by eminent domain. Bill Miller of Dogtown said he was worried the bill was an attempt to take the property of the man who owns it. That man, who Miller said is 99 years old, now lives with a daughter, so the house is vacant.

"As far as we can tell, there is nothing wrong with the house," Miller Said prior to the meeting. "Neighbors on either side are very concerned now with attempts to blight this piece of property."

When Bauer brought the bill before the committee, he said a daughter of the man who owns the property had entered into a contract to sell it to Highland Homes. He said the woman did so after responding to a letter that Highland Homes sent to local property owners.

Bauer said John Cavanaugh of Highland Homes asked him to include the property in the blighting bill, but Cavanaugh had a soil test done at the property and found the land was unsuitable for construction. He said Cavanaugh now does not want to buy the property. The committee removed the property from the bill after Bauer said he planned to remove it before the bill reached the full Board of Aldermen.

Prior to this action, some Dogtown residents had signed up to speak about the bill, so they used the opportunity to speak out against Bauer.

Bob Corbett told the committee that people on Fairmount Avenue have been calling him about their fear that people on the block would be forced to sell.

Corbett spoke of the development at the top of the hill on Fairmount Avenue -- by the Saamon Group and Highland Homes -- saying residents at the bottom of the hill worry they would be forced to move so similar development could occur.

One resident of Fairmount Avenue, who lives next door to the property that was removed from the bill, said she feared her home would be taken by eminent domain.

Bauer later claimed Corbett is trying to stir people up so his brother, John Corbett, a former political opponent of Bauer's, would be better positioned to run for alderman if Bauer is recalled. A group that wants Bauer recalled submitted petitions last week with the Board of Elections seeking a recall election.

The alderman said the ordinance that he submitted says explicitly that eminent domain would not be used to take the properties that are being blighted.

"Every property in Dogtown that is being built on currently has been purchased through negotiations between the buyer and the seller," Bauer said.

Bauer said the property over which the residents had become upset was being sold by the man's daughter. When asked the daughter's name, Bauer said he only knew that she was a nurse. He said he does not get involved in the transactions except when legislative action is needed.

One daughter of the man who owns the exempted property on Fairmount declined to comment to the Journals.

The alderman said only two sites in Dogtown are being taken by eminent domain -- the site for a proposed QuikTrip at McCausland and Manchester avenues and the junkyard site on Manchester Avenue. He said neither site is under construction.

Bauer said he has received authorization to use eminent domain on only two other sites in his ward. One was a site on Louisville Avenue where the home had been destroyed by a fire and the other was a vacant home on the corner of Fairmount and Mitchell avenues, Bauer said. On the latter property, Bauer said eminent domain was authorized, but an agreement was reached before it was used.

Bauer said he would only use eminent domain when it benefits the public good.

"The QuikTrip one is motivated by a necessity to widen Manchester by one lane," Bauer said. "If it weren't for the widening of Manchester, QuikTrip wouldn't be going in.

"I'm not going to be doing eminent domain for developers who want to do housing."

Bauer said developers would continue to buy from willing sellers and build housing to fill in vacant spots.

"What you have to realize is the top half of Fairmount was actually the slums of Dogtown. People at the bottom of the hill have been benefited because the bad property and bad tenants are gone at the top of the hill," Bauer said. "No one at the bottom of the hill is ever going to be forced to sell -- not as long as I'm alderman."

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From Bob Corbett
(These are my REAL views, not the nonsense Mr. Bauer states in my name without ever talking to me about it. These comments were not published in the newspaper article, but appear here on this web page for the first time.)

In the article above Tom Bauer has totally misconstrued my position and purpose in the comments I made to the board hearing the bill on blighting 1526 Fairmount.

1. Not only am I NOT opposed to development in Dogtown, I even am pleased with the development at the TOP of the Fairmount. It seems to me it will improve Dogtown, and to the best of my knowledge the properties were obtained from WILLING sellers.
   
   
2. My SOLE concern is that people who are not wanting to sell their homes will be pressured by legal tools (blighting and eminent domain) or much more subtle tools (use of blighting to simply SCARE people into selling), or real estate people who would use any FEAR tactics to scare people into selling their homes when they do not wish to sell.
   
   The author of the Journal article above suggests my concern was the possible use of eminent domain. That’s ONE thing that worries me. But much more of concern to me are more subtle pressures. Blighting, no matter where it eventually leads, put fear and pressure on any property owner. I also fear real estate tactics that suggest to people they will lose their property anyway, thus offer them deals that don’t want.
   
   Many home owners feel both fear and pressure from such tactics, and the group I am organizing in Dogtown is to work with such people to help them learn what is possible and to stand with them in their fear and concern.
   
   
3. I am in no way interested in stirring up people again Bauer FOR THE PURPOSE OF MY BROTHER'S POSSIBLE CANDIDACY AGAINST BAUER. Rather, I'm wishing Mr. Bauer, the current alderman, would take the fears and worries of the citizens of Dogtown more seriously, and would work with them to do what a group of us citizens feel the need to do in his absence -- trying to alleviate fears people have, and to stand with people who wish to resist selling their properties to developers or having their property taken by legal means.
   
   
4. I have long ago at public meetings expressed my opposition to the use of eminent domain in the area of Manchester and McCausland since I do not believe at all that the proposed 2 block widening of Manchester and the adding of a questionable left-turn lane, is in any way an adequate SOCIAL GOOD to justify taking people homes and property by eminent domain.
   
   I stand by this opposition.
   
   
5. I haven't given much thought to the use of eminent domain to take the property from the owners of the former junk yard. I would be interested in hearing opinions of others on this.
   
   I am VEHEMENTLY opposed to the use of eminent domain on that property IN THE INTERESTS OF ANY PARTICULAR DEVELOPER. Were the property to be sold at open competitive bidding, then I would be much more open to the process.

Bob Corbett
7/21/05