Everyone's from somewhere. And today you get to hear about my somewhere.

In my little suburban corner of Ohio we have a budding controversy wending its way through the courts--which wending will hopefully conclude soon as the matter will actually be put to referendum on the upcoming November ballot. St Joseph's Church in Sylvania, OH owns a bit of property which contains a ramshackle building of some alleged historical significance: the Lathrop House. This property is across the street from their main facility and is, according to the Church (which operates a Catholic school K-8 at the site as well) an essential part of their master strategic plan for the next 50 years. They intend to build a school expansion on the site where the Lathrop House currently stands, and the main argument is over what to do with the house.

There's been a lot of fairly passionate discussion from both sides on this issue. It seems that most parties are in agreement that preserving the house is generally preferable to tearing it down, and there has been much talk of dismantling the house and moving it to a nearby plot of land already owned by the city. For some reason the city has adopted--fairly late in the process--the position that the site itself is equally essential, and has begun eminent domin proceedings to seize, or at least forcibly purchase, the land from St Joseph's. It's at this point that I became interested, as can think of maybe one or two situations where eminent domain is not morally repugnant, and the preservation of a run-down house isn't normally one of them.

The house was evidently used as a stop on the Underground Railroad back before and/or during the Civil War; the ravine behind and below the house was evidently the main path of traffic for this activity. I used the word evidently twice in that sentence for a reason, and that is because this activity is alleged or believed to have occurred, but I've not seen any authoritative conclusions drawn on the matter; the City of Sylvania points to a single paragraph in a 1939 (!) issue of the Quarterly Bulletin of the Historical Society of Northwest Ohio as the only written proof of the matter they choose to mention. In this, some house called "Colonial House," presumably the same one presently in question, is identified as having been found to contain a secret basement room with beds in it, which could have been used for housing fugitive slaves. It's on page 3, second column, third paragraph of the excerpt of the Bulletin posted by the City here. In the City's Resolution 28-2001 , the City describes the "local legend" (the actual resolution language) that the house was part of the Railroad, and cites some architectural findings which may tend to grant more credence to that legend. It's really not very conclusive, and it's not as firm a basis as I'd like to see from a city government about to commit an eminent domain land seizure; read them and judge for yourself.

The retention of physical history is important, and the desire to see the house preserved is understandable. But before the city council of our quaint little community violates the most fundamental tenets of the rule of law and the private ownership of property, a fairly close examination of the facts and the recent history of the matter is warranted.

The church bought the property fairly recently, in October 2001. Before that, according to the City of Sylvania'stimeline, the private owner of the building had asked the City whether it might be interested to buy the property for $750,000, which frankly is more than the property was worth. The city not surprisingly did not make an offer based on this discussion, and instead aligned itself with a group of private investors who wanted to renovate the house into a bed & breakfast. The City did offer to spend up to $175,000 to buy property surrounding the building for a park, presumably in order to allow the investors to come up with a smaller amount to offer for just the building and a small parcel of land. The City says an offer was submitted by this group (but doesn't discuss terms of the offer) at about the same time the Church submitted an offer for $350,000, which was accepted by the previous owner. I expect that the other offer (which the City was indirectly a party to) was for less money, or it would have been accepted instead. The Church immediately applied for a demolition permit upon closing on the property, which application was reviewed by the City and a permit was issued on 11/5/2001.

At this point in the narrative the waters become murkier. The Church expressed a desire for everyone to just get along, and a willingness to do its part to ensure that happened; to that end, they agreed not to excercise their demolition permit while discussions were ongoing. The City seemed to consider moving the house and acceptable solution, and on 11/17/2001 passed a Resolution (the same one referenced above) calling on the Church to not demolish the house and to instead consider relocating it. A few months later, on 3/4/2002, Council even passed an Ordinance providing partial funding for the move: the City claimed, in this ordinance, that the total cost to move the house was estimated at $115,000; acknowledged that Friends of Lathrop House had come up with $25,000 themselves, and directed the Mayor to spend "an amount not to exceed" $50,000 as the City's contribution. Just two weeks later the Council reversed themselves, passing a Resolution which stated emphatically that the house should remain standing on its present site.

It's hard to say precisely what's happened since then. During the remainder of 2002 there were evidently several offers and counter offers for a land swap, where the Church would take position of a nearby parcel of City property and build its school expansion thereon; and there was discussion of moving the house to a plot of City property 100 yards north on Main St. Both parties seem to make some vague and somewhat contradictory claims over the intermediate steps during th rest of the negotiations, which aren't really particularly important as they didn't go anywhere.

Evidently the Church tired of all the interminable negotiations, and stated that without an executed written agreement being concluded by 3/31/2003,the building would be razed on 4/1/2003. The City sought a restraining order preventing this action, but was denied on the grounds that the demolition permit had been legitimately issued by the City. So the City revoked its duly issued permit, essentially by fiat. On 3/26/2003 the City Council resolved to appropriate the property from the dioscese, and two days later they filed their complaint of eminent domain and deposited $400,000 (their estimation of the value of the property) with the court as the down payment against the eventual forced sale of the property.

Leaving aside certain questions such as whether $400,000 is a fair price and whether the relocation of a historic house from its original to a nearby site destroys the historical value of the structure, Council actions in this matter are disappointing. The City could have purchased the property when it was for sale had it believed it to be so valuable. While the City, in its recent newsletter on the issue, sniffs that the buyer's original asking price of $750,000 was not acceptable and that the City was "not afforded any opportunity to purchase the house at the price St Joseph's paid," this is somewhat duplicitous; property negotiations are not conducted as an auction, where everyone has one last chance to better their previous offer before they lose the opportunity to buy. If multiple prospective buyers are negotiating with a single seller concurrently, both would-be buyers are well aware that it's a bit of a poker game. The buyer asks a price, both sellers offer a counter, and--clarifications of terms and details aside--everyone gets just one shot in these cases. The first time a seller has an offer he'd like to accept, he either takes it or allows the other would-be buyer a blind chance to beat the first price by completing and submitting his bid, if one is already in process (meaning the second prospective buyer knows he has to beat some price, but he doesn't know what that price is). If the second bid is not as high, the first bidder wins--end of discussion, period. It's terribly, grossly unethical for a seller to fudge around the confidentiality of the bids or to offer second chances to one but not both. Council naturally understands this but omits it from its argument.

I also find the City's revocation of a duly issued permit, merely because the excercise of this legally-issued permit would displease Council, to reflect an attitude of self-importance unbecoming a council of elected public servants. That our civilization follows the rule of law, not the rule of men, is the very first principle upon which liberal democracy is based. Council has disregarded its own laws by revoking a permit it had issued as a result of its own due processes.

It also, through the Church's negotiating in good faith, gained a two-year delay from when the Church bought the property, to when the City may forcibly expropriate it from them. During that time the Church has been paying the interest on the bank note; spent (by their claim) $50,000 on engineering, surveys, and plans; and fantastic amounts of time dealing with Council meetings, Council Executive sessions, ad hoc meetings with Council and Friends of the Lathrop House, etc. I've ushered building plans through a number of Planning Comissions, Zoning Boards, and City Councils in Ohio, and even when they are disposed to be friendly toward a project it sometimes requires really unfathomable amounts of time and patience. Dealing with a Council disposed to be antagonistic toward a project results in all the above, plus it's then unpleasant too. Interminable negotiations are essentially free from the City's perspective, since they'd have to pay whatever Councilmen and Planning Comission members are involved to do that sort of work anyway. But it costs a private organization money, and the City allowed this to go on for seventeen months until the Church finally called their bluff and threatened to actually demolish the building. I'm disappointed in Council and I intend my vote in the November elections will reflect that.

Citizens for Sylvania circulated a petition to request the City abandon its eminent domain proceedings, among other things (such as pay the Church's legal fees incurred up to that point in this matter). I was pleased to be one of the roughly 1700 signators to the document, but which request was ultimately rejected by Council. The matter has now been scheduled to be put to a popular vote as Issue 16 on the November ballot. City Council has spent $15,000 from the City Treasury (a smallish sum, sure, but that's hardly the point) to print the newsletter mentioned above, to influence voters into supporting Council actions throughout these proceedings. Council referred to them as educational, which I suppose is an allowed purpose; but the newsletter doesn't seem impartial and educational to me, but rather reads like an advocacy paper. Read it and judge for yourself. Voters may have elected this Council to represent them, but probably did not intend to elect them into positions where Council would then spend the voters' own money to influence the otherwise gullible sensibilities of, well, the voters. I'm sure that's not what I voted for.

But the most fundamental and important issue is the eminent domain itself. I hate eminent domain, even when it makes sense to use it. And it only makes sense to use it when there's no hope of compromise, otherwise it's wielded far too casually. If a city wishes to built an airport, and needs to purchase and demolish 100 homes in order to do it, and there's one holdout who says he won't sell for any price--maybe then it makes sense, but I still don't feel good about it. But otherwise the project comes unglued, as you can't build most of an airport on most of the desired land, and leave one house right between the runways. But if a compromise is possible to keep all of the parties mostly happy, or at least somewhat happy, it is immoral and unacceptable to execute eminent domain instead of compromising. And in this case the compromise is to preserve the building but not on its current site. No one's quite happy if that happens--not even the church, which has dealt with this issue at considerable time and expense for two years now. But it allows everyone to get something out of it. If you're willing to endorse eminent domain just because the government doesn't like the offered compromise, that grants far too much authority and discretion to the government, which is not a positive precedent. Permitting excessive discretion to the government--any government--allows all manner of pernicious mischief to follow. It's important to have the system itself be the solution, and not rely on the integrity or competence of whomever happens to occupy an office.

I'm disappointed in my City goverment and I will tell them so, and I mean to vote against the authors of this debacle (in addition to voting for Issue 16 itself). I'll let you all know how it turns out. And now that you know more than you probably wanted about the internecine struggles of a suburban Ohio community, I imagine you can't wait either.

JKS.