Eminent Domain, An Abuse of Government in Southeast, Washington, DC

While looking for something else on line this morning, I came across a link to a Washington Times article in which I was quoted back in 2004. Some time in 2003, before going to law school, I started working to mobilize local business owners in the southeast section of Washington, DC to save their businesses located in the Skyland Shopping Center from the heartless wrecking ball of government seizure of their private property,to be enforced in the name of eminent domain.

The plaza consisted of approximately 12 or 13 businesses, maybe more, that included a post office, a government employment office, two liquor stores, several eateries (one of which was a brand new KFC), a food shopping store, a discount variety store, a few hairdressers, a record store, shoe store and more. Post eminent domain, after several years of empty promises for a large anchor retail store, all that remains is the CVS Pharmacy. In 2003 and part of 2004, I lived and was an active citizen in the Hillcrest community, which is located near the shopping center in Southeast DC.

For most of the past ten years those store owners, mostly local residents who owned small "mom and pop" establishments, were deprived of their livelihood as their businesses were gradually shut down, local residents of a mostly economically depressed neighborhood were deprived of jobs and convenient services and a site that some neighbors complained was an eye sore to the community with the local businesses, spent the last several years having to live instead with boarded up and abandoned buildings, an even greater eye sore. There were no winners...

As a result of my activism, I befriended one of the store owners who went from owning her own home and a thriving business to filing bankruptcy and moving into an apartment. There were no winners... Sadly, the merchants owned their business but not the property. Try as they may, they had little leverage against their unsympathetic government.

I frequently visit Washington DC and on occasion make certain to make a special trip past the Skyland Shopping Center, specifically to see what has become of the plaza. In May 2014, just a few months ago, I made one of those trips. What I discovered was a vacant lot with a few guys sitting around on heavy equipment seemingly waiting to go to work. Presumably, more than ten years after wrecking the community and depriving small business owners of their livelihood, the city is finally ready to break ground on what will be a "new and improved" shopping center. In the interim, lots of people and a community were hurt. Most of the shop keepers lost, the community lost and after ten years of providing no jobs and receiving no tax revenue from once thriving businesses, the government lost too..

Eminent domain, all too often, is an abuse of government. In this instance there is no denying that such was the case...  Shameful!