Thank you very much. Part of chairing this panel at the end of the day is to keep my remarks short, which I plan to do. Very briefly, at the advantage of having listened to the entire presentation thus far, I have two observations. And there are two points I would like to make.
Some of you remember me from other conferences. In the past,
I have described how we have been representing a group on Long
Island involving the Pine Barrens for many years now. My first
observation arises from this experience. It has been over seven
years we have been representing the group. They are those individuals
and people who have owned land in the core area of the Pine Barrens
on Long Island. All they wanted was equity and that is all they
have been seeking, and many times, when we took over the lawsuits
that have been brought, they would have accepted the use of eminent
domain to take their property. Instead what that Pine Barrens
Plan left them with was paying the taxes on their property or
letting it go for taxes. It is impossible for them to do anything
with the property even though there supposedly is a system where
they can get a hardship exemption, which is something akin to
being able to walk to the moon.
Secondly, I observed that one of the dissenters in the Kelo
case was Sandra Day O’Connor, and she was being interviewed
on TV shortly after she announced her retirement. Someone asked
her about the Kelo case. She said that people shouldn’t
be surprised at the way the court held generally, because the
court generally wants to leave control of land use in the local
hands.
So I wanted to point out something. There is a theme throughout
all of our presentations today. We talked about these new, I call
them, these crazy plans to depopulate areas to return the Earth
to a state it will never see again, even if the human race were
extinct tomorrow, and things of that nature. Those things are
not going to happen or shouldn’t happen, but, where we have
to carry our battle, is still in the local arena. We can’t
believe that a new president or a new party in control either
way is going to change the circumstances until we convince enough
of the local government, the local leaders, local and state leaders,
that our views are the views that should be held. We have to take
the country back to those principles that we all believe in.
This is not a political comment. It is not meant to favor any
party. We want to protect the individual’s rights and those
rights include property rights. To do that you have to fight and
you have to fight initially in the local level and then the state
level, and that is where the battle ultimately is going to be
won or lost, because even the Supreme Court is going to eventually
reflect the national trend. Hopefully the Kelo case is
either the high point or low point of whatever the current trend
is and the pendulum will them swing back to where property rights
are respected and followed. Because, as I have stated several
times from this podium, I firmly believe that the best protectors
of property and the environment are those people who own it.
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