Positively B Street: eminent domain is no joke

The list of bookmarked blogs I read regularly has steadily grown. A few of them are talk-shop journalism blogs that the average Mercedian wouldn't bother with. However, anytime I stumble on a blog with a tie to Merced County or the Valley, it goes right on my list.

The latest one I've begun reading is "Thegardeningsnail's Weblog," written by Katherine Schell, a regular at the Livingston City Council meetings. She's mainly writing about the happenings at City Hall, and I'm always interested in other perspectives.

One of her recent posts takes Councilman Roy Soria to task for a comment he made during the last meeting about how the city would eventually have to take private land as right-of-way for the expansion of B Street. The person building a health clinic didn't want to buy the adjoining land for a parking lot because she'd lose too much of it to the city.

In a fairly cavalier way, Soria said, "Eventually, we are going to take it from someone."

At the council meeting, I didn't think a whole lot of it. All sorts of jokes are made with varying degrees of success.

Then I read Schell's blog and also saw a letter to the editor. The more I consider it, the more I see why they're upset.

The reality is that the city is growing and everyone will agree that B Street, one of the main commercial drags, will need to be widened. Unfortunately, land will need to be bought from willing or unwilling owners.

But residents, especially ones who've seen the land of friends and neighbors taken by the government, are sensitive to the issue of eminent domain. For them, it's not a punch line to a joke.