April 3, 2006 -- When it comes to abuse of the powers of government, it's hard to beat Mayor Marvin Natiss of North Hills in Nassau County.
North Hills is one of the most affluent town in America, and Natiss plans to use the power of eminent domain to make it even richer. The scheme is an absurd overreach, even if it is dressed up as an "economic development" program.
As Natiss sees it, North Hills' property values would be substantially enhanced if the town were to have its own "public" golf course - with membership restricted solely to well-heeled village residents.
And no doubt he's right. That's the way it has worked elsewhere, especially in the Sunbelt.
But first, Natiss - er, North Hills - needs to acquire a suitable patch of land.
And that's where the privately owned Deepdale Golf Club comes in.
Natiss essentially intends to use eminent domain to confiscate a private golf club for the purposes of creating what would be a private golf club in all but the strictly legal sense.
Never mind that such a thing is explicitly prohibited by the Supreme Court's most recent eminent domain, Kelo v. New London. (In Kelo, the court wrote that any "taking" must not serve "to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals." Which, by charging an estimated $18,000/year and limiting membership exclusively to North Hills residents, is precisely what this taking would do.)
Natiss and the village Board of Trustees apparently plan to finance the takeover by selling development rights to parcels of land adjacent to Deepdale - already pricey land that experience suggest would become substantially more valuable once the confiscation is completed.
How valuable? A fair measure is how much developers have kicked in to the slush fund: A cool $20 million.
North Hills, of course, hardly needs a new golf club.
It already has a course for use by its residents - and it's free. And another public course lies just three miles away.
Indeed, Deepdale's attorneys found 20 golf courses within five miles of the center of North Hills - and more than 50 (11 of them private) within 15 miles.
Clearly, Natiss and his confederates have no case in equity to take Deepdale.
They're seeking to condemn private property simply to add value to what is already some of the most expensive real estate in the nation.
That is, they want to use the power of government to make rich people richer.
That's not right.
County Exec Tom Souzzi needs to take a couple of days from his gubernatorial campaign and take a long, hard look at Natiss' pungent get-richer-quick scheme.
Him, or the Nassau County DA.
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