Gov't grabs elderly man's home; won't give reason

in America no one should lose their home to heaven and domain for someone else's private use that's happening to me in Atlantic City I'm Charlie Birnbaum my parents came here in 1969 this is a home that has been a vital part of my life for my family's life my background is in piano performance something I never would have dreamed of is that I would somehow wind up in Atlantic City tuning pianos of the casinos and at the same time to be able to help my parents as they were getting older when my dad passed away in 1987 we were able to get mom from a nursing home back into this apartment and from 1988 through 1998 my mother lived in her own home I was able to come and check on my mother between my tunings in Atlantic City and that was taken away from us in 1998 I got a call from my City police with herb in a briefing and now somebody come in and brutally beat my mother to death so we went through that terrible period as a family and my way of fighting back when I have a tragedy is I work I do something I still come here between my tunings in Atlantic City and that's why this property has meant so much it was my therapy we're facing imminent domain the 38th state of New Jersey has decided to to a development we're in that development zone the CR da is the casino reinvestment Development Authority which is a state agency basically set up to funnel tax dollars to casinos and casino related development in Atlantic City unfortunately for people like Charlie it also has the power to take private property through eminent domain and one of the public meetings I asked oh you're taking my property what are you gonna do with it and the answer was we don't know yet I said you take my property and the best you can come you don't know yet Charlie's story illustrates everything that's wrong with eminent domain abuse I don't understand how you can look at Charlie with his deep emotional connection to this place and think well they're gonna take this away from him but that's okay because they'll give him some money what they're attempting to do is not right it's not fair it's actually rather inhumane yeah to me it's on American I love this grant I love this building my sweat and hard work have worn into this building I'm proud that the building is standing because of my effort you care the CR da isn't trying to take Charlies home because they need it they're just trying to take it because they think they can if you look at the property they're planning to acquire Charlie's way up on this little spur unrelated to anything else they're taking no mining cities in desperate need of redevelopment I'm all for it I have an entire block in front of me that's empty down to the ground ready for redevelopment I didn't know that part of the redevelopment was get rid of me first and that we could redevelop well that's wrong we were here first who we have a right to be here we lived through the bat I want to live enjoy the good you

Channel: Institute for Justice

Views: 356,943

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Id: RCQM2_nagsM

Length: 4min 10sec (250 seconds)

Published: Wed May 21 2014