Save Our Community was founded in the movement to resist Wal-Mart's development in Rosemead, California. Now, it has become a general site for news, information, gossip, talk, and blogging about Rosemead. We also have stories about South San Gabriel, San Gabriel, Montebello, and occasionally about Pico Rivera, El Monte, South El Monte, Alhambra, Temple City, and other nearby communities. Your host is Todd. If you want a blog just sign up, get approved, and start writing. Good posts will be moved onto the home page.
The best lines:
"We raised $2M and we're on our way to $5M."
"If you know any rich people who really love property rights, let me know."
So it seems prop 98 isn't about protecting regular homeowners from eminent domain as much as it is about giving landlords, particularly the wealthy ones, more power and money (by allowing them to raise rents at will, among other things).
Prop 98 would eliminate rent control in the cities that have it. These are generally the most urbanized areas with large populations of renters, like LA, and not the suburbs like Rosemead. So they're trying to get the voters in cities like Rosemead to vote based on the "eminent domain" parts that affect them (a yes vote) and ignore the other parts. This would counteract the renters in LA and SF, and tenants of mobile home parks, who will vote "no" on 98 because it will raise their rents.
Prop 99 is a proposition pushed by the anti-98 organizations. It is similar to 98, except that it covers *only* eminent domain, and does not eliminate rent control or regulations on mobile home parks. They're hoping to give voters a choice between a wide-ranging law that privileges all land-owners, 98, and a narrower law to protect residential homeowners, in 99.
One thing that really bothers me about 98 is that people, locally, passed these rent control laws (or did not pass them in many cases). This state law would strip the localities of the power to write their own real estate laws. I'm wary of that, especially when it doesn't increase the rights of "the people" at large -- prop 98 would privilege a small segment of business operators. Also, apartments are businesses, so this isn't just a "property rights" issue as the prop 98 advocates are presenting it as.
Submitted by Zebra24601 on Mon, 05/12/2008 - 00:36.
I didn't bother listening to the video because I already know what's behind this "property rights" movement. The whole thing is a sham, from top to bottom. That's why they keep talking about stopping "government takings," as opposed to stopping the government from "making you sell your property at full market value if your property is blighted," which is already the rule in California. If Prop 98 passes, then anyone who wanted to, say, limit the height of buildings on Valley Blvd would have to pay the property owners for the "lost" value.
An Interesting Prop 98 Video
I didn't bother listening to the video because I already know what's behind this "property rights" movement. The whole thing is a sham, from top to bottom. That's why they keep talking about stopping "government takings," as opposed to stopping the government from "making you sell your property at full market value if your property is blighted," which is already the rule in California. If Prop 98 passes, then anyone who wanted to, say, limit the height of buildings on Valley Blvd would have to pay the property owners for the "lost" value.