The October 14, 2007 Press Enterprise story (and we do mean story, not article) was just more evidence that the corporate-controlled media can’t be trusted.
Yup, Doug Haberman’s puff piece about the City of Riverside’s use of eminent domain bears about as much resemblance to the unbiased truth as did the PE’s article — oops, story! – about the City of Riverside’s many fine parks. That was the story that listed Streeter Park as a lovely city park – despite the fact that Streeter Park, six or so years earlier, had been bulldozed and turned into extremely dense housing.
The park story not only made untrue claims about Streeter and other parks, but even included a MAP that showed a nice green rectangle where Streeter Park USED TO BE, and claimed you could enjoy such amenities as basketball there! The intrepid journalist who covered THAT story clearly did nothing more than rely on the City’s PR machine, which, years after Streeter Park was destroyed, still listed it as a park in the City’s “aren’t we great” (”when we fudge on the whole truth”) newsletter.
Getting back to the October 14 E.D. story, it’s clear that Haberman relied heavily on the City’s PR, and accepted the City’s “spin” on E.D. (In this blogger’s opinion, Haberman has already given City officials so much help in his coverage of issues that it won’t be any surprise if he takes over former PE employee, Ray Smith’s, job as the County’s PR/media contact person when Smith retires. Stay tuned!)
What’s wrong with Haberman’s story? Well, where to begin? First, he acts like the THREAT of eminent domain isn’t the USE of eminent domain. In other words, nothing the City does to take private property counts as eminent domain until the targeted property owner decides to go ahead and spend a LOT OF MONEY and hire an attorney to fight back, and the parties then actually go to court.
That’s the only way that Haberman can claim that the City hasn’t taken any owner-occupied homes through eminent domain. So, by only counting as the use of eminent domain cases in which the owners decided to fight back, Haberman can ignore such facts as that the owners of the now-demolished Kawa Market LIVED IN A SINGLE FAMILY HOME behind their little market — and that the City, in a charge led by Dom Betro, took their home, as well as their business, by using the THREAT of eminent domain.
And just how bad is that threat? Is it expensive to fight City Hall? You bet. City officials’ own money isn’t on the line, so they can be very, very generous when it comes to hiring lawyers to fight us litle people in court. Here’s an example. While it doesn’t involve the use of the basic eminent domain for redevelopment laws, it does involve the use of a related law that allows cities to take apartments being run by slumlords.
In this example, such law was used to target a single family home owner, not an apartment-owning slumlord. But the City was not only happy to misuse any law as an excuse to take an owner-occupied single family home; it also was quite willing to spend the big bucks to do so.
The City used such law to try to evict the homeowner and put his family home into a receivership from whence it could be sold. To pursue what was really only a relatively simple code enforcement case, something normally handled by city attorneys’ offices themselves via an administrative process, RIVERSIDE’S City Attorney (Greg Priamos) chose to take the homeowner to civil court.
By going with a civil suit, Priamos had an excuse to FLY TWO ATTORNEYS ALL THE WAY DOWN FROM SACRAMENTO — attorneys with the Sacramento office of the law firm of Best, Best & Krieger. (Heaven forbid the City might use BB&K’s Riverside office, which is close enough that its attorneys can WALK to the courthouse . . . . )
BB&K gets a lot, if not all, of the City’s redevelopment and bond work, and its attorneys, knowing which side their bond work is buttered on, regularly support incumbent City Council members. In the above-described case, a cynical person might almost suspect that City officials were trying to return the favor, since BB&K billed the City, which didn’t question the bill, more than $204,000.
No doubt our City Attorney felt that $204,000 was a bargain. After all, BB&K used the services of over 15 BB&K attorneys (plus multiple paralegals, secretaries and law clerks) to fight the homeowner into a draw. (It was a draw because the City couldn’t manage to evict the homeowner or put his house into a receivership, but the homeowner decided to sell his house rather than spend more money to continue to litigate the remaining issues.)
Many people might think $204,000 was a steep price to pay for a code enforcement case involving a single family home. But given ALL the legal talent that BB&K had been forced to throw into the battle, it’s no wonder that the City Attorney didn’t question the bill. (When the fact came out that the homeowner was represented during most of the litigation by only one attorney [who had NO paralegals, secretaries OR law clerks] the City’s attorneys explained the need for 15 BB&K attorneys, plus staff, as follows: to paraphrase, the homeowner’s attorney actually DEFENDED her client, so we had to spend a lot of time talking to each other about the case.)
The cost of that homeowner’s defense was more than $50,000. How many of YOU could come up with the money to fight off this kind of onslaught from a big, let’s-bill-for-talking-to-each-other-about-this-case law firm? Especially when the lawsuit against you is funded with taxpayer money disbursed by a grateful city whose incumbent politicians (1) get regular support from the same law firm, and (2) have no personal financial responsibilty for paying the lawyers’ fees?
Returning to the problems with Haberman’s story: by omitting the City’s use of the THREAT of litigation, Haberman didn’t have to discuss how many property owners, like the Kawa Market folks, simply folded when threatened — or why they folded. He also used lots of pro-eminent domain assertions from city officials and developers, but failed to look for any RESPONSIVE comments to those assertions from critics of eminent domain — and there are plenty of critics from whom to choose.
Instead, the two brief anti-eminent domain quotes, from Rob Freeman and Sarah Garner, simply expressed generalized criticisms of eminent domain for redevelopment, and didn’t provide any counterpoint to such specific City and developer claims as that targets of E.D. won’t take a reasonable price for their land, or that the prices asked meant it made no economic sense for a developer to buy lots unless the City used E.D. to take them.
That last assertion, by developer Mark Rubin, could have provided a great opportunity for a contrary comment from, for example, the Martins — if Haberman had wanted to be more even-handed. Why? Because Rubin offered the Martins, for their commercial property and going business, the same price they’d paid seven years earlier. And that was BEFORE the current market downturn.
That was Rubin’s first, last and ONLY offer. He then went to the City Council, warranted that he’d made EVERY effort to buy the Martins’ property, and, based on such claim, got the City to use our tax money, and the threat of E.D., to force the Martins out. (Notably, the Inland Empire Weekly managed to find and interview the Martins . . . . In contrast, the PE story’s map, on p. B8, didn’t even manage to include the site of the Martins’ PROPERTY (on Market at First Street.)
There’s another issue not addressed by Haberman, a basic one which underlies the use of eminent domain to benefit private economic interests. Any system in which a few politicians can decide WHICH developer gets to buy private property for a price that makes “economic sense” to the developer, but not the property owner, is clearly one susceptible to the use of bribery and corruption.
Of course, in a country in which campaign contributions are not called bribes, and where politicians can go on “fact-finding” trips paid for by those with vested interests in their votes, can ANYTHING be called bribery or corruption?
It’s worth noting that the big campaign donors tend to be corporations, big law firms, and developers — all of whom figure in the story of E.D. in the City of Riverside. Didn’t spot the corporation in the E.D. story by Doug Haberman? Look again, and remember: a campaign contribution can be made in ways other than money.
The Press Enterprise: better coverage provided through corporate-controlled media. The question is: better coverage for which side?
