Bretibart Goes to bat for California Farmers

California Gov. Brown is proposing to take land via eminent doamin from 300 farmers so some river deltas can be reworked to bring more water to populated areas.

Breitbart engaged a water and land use lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, who said 3 important things:, 

• No oversight in eminent domain projects:“..the use of eminent domain does not allow for a proper system of “checks and balances,” even for controversial state infrastructure projects.”
• California can start work before legal issues are resolved.“The fact that they don’t have the project approved has generally not been a bar to acquiring the property,” Francois said. “If the project is controversial, they don’t need any special approvals to acquire the property, and that starts making the project look more inevitable. [State contractors could say] ‘Hey, we’ve already spent the money acquiring the property, we better get started building it.”
• Is the compensation to farmers just? “Are they only taking the property they need for the underground tunnels, or are they taking the surface estate as well?” Francois said. “It’s the cutting [the land] up that creates a significant problem that farmers think they are not getting properly compensated for.”

Breitbart