‘A true story of defiance and courage’

So what does Jeff Benedict see as the biggest problem with the City of New London, Conn.’s multi-million dollar waterfront project, the one that left Susette Kelo and 15 other homeowners displaced and was argued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court?

He sees nothing.

“They tore those houses down,” said Benedict, an investigative journalist and professor at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, “and nothing ever got built. It’s just a big, vacant empty space, and that’s tragic.”

In the process, though, Kelo has become to property rights what Erin Brockovich was to the environment. Julia Roberts may be working on a movie deal as we speak (or maybe Nicole Kidman, since Kelo has red hair).

And Benedict is doing his part, as well, having written a book called “Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage.” Last weekend, Benedict invited Kelo to SVU along with her attorney, Scott Bullock, and they were greeted by a campuswide explosion of pink – pink balloons, pink streamers, pink flyers, pink chalk and pink brownies.

Obviously, Benedict isn’t exactly neutral in his approach to this issue. But neither is anybody else, because Kelo v. City of New London was a case that aggravated people across the political spectrum, from right-leaning libertartians to left-leaning liberals.

Even the Supreme Court minority in the case (Kelo lost, 5-4) was something of a mixed bag — then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, conservative justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the dissenting opinion.

This all started in 2000, with New London in a period of economic slippage. When the Pfizer pharmaceutical company decided to build a research facility in New London, New London’s city government saw the opportunity to re-invent the downtown waterfront area. Wouldn’t it be nice, they decided, to take 90 acres adjacent to the Pfizer plant and use it for such things as new office buildings, a marina and a riverfront walkway?

Susette Kelo didn’t see it that way. A paramedic, she had moved into the Fort Trumbull section of town in 1996, purchasing a house with a commanding view of the waterfront and painting it salmon pink. It didn’t really bother her that her new home was located rather close to a sewage treatment plant.

Less than five years later, however, she found herself facing an eviction notice after refusing to sell the house. Several private developers were lining up to start projects as soon as the city could claim the land through eminent domain.

“This was a really big deal,” said Benedict, “because of the larger implications. The city’s argument was based primarily on the fact that jobs would be created and the tax base strengthened.”

Previously, American cities had used eminent domain largely to take over properties that were blighted, or directly in the way of a public project such as an expressway. Using it on behalf of a private developer was breaking new ground (literally), and the lines of polarization formed quickly.

To put this in context, what if the City of Lynchburg decided to build a civic center? The area needs one, and it would create jobs and tourist dollars. But since it’s hard to find a level parcel of Lynchburg real estate that hasn’t already been developed, what if the city decided to plunk this arena down in the middle of an existing subdivision? And what if a private company was going to build and run the arena?

An unlikely scenario, perhaps. But no one can argue that the Kelo decision didn’t open the door.

Benedict’s book just came out in January, and he hopes it will continue to fan the flames of the eminent domain debate. Kelo herself was been traveling all over the country speaking to groups of all kinds.

In a way, her part in the story had a happy ending — as a compromise, the city agreed to move her little pink house somewhere else in New London. But most of her neighbors weren’t so lucky, and it is their banner that Kelo appears to have seized.

“Several states have amended their constitutions not to allow eminent domain on behalf of private companies,” Benedict said. “That’s a start.”