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Eminent-domain fears swirl as Foxconn breaks ground in Mount Pleasant

By: Nate Beck, [email protected]//June 29, 2018//

Eminent-domain fears swirl as Foxconn breaks ground in Mount Pleasant

By: Nate Beck, [email protected]//June 29, 2018//

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As Foxconn Technology Group officially marked the start on Thursday of work on its $10 billion factory in Mount Pleasant, fears swirled that local officials were moving to unleash a legal means of forcing homeowners to make way for the technology giant: eminent domain.

The specter of eminent domain was mentioned frequently at a rally held that same day in a Mount Pleasant park to protest the Foxconn deal. The demonstration coincided with the Foxconn project’s official groundbreaking ceremony, an event attended by President Donald Trump, Gov. Scott Walker and cabinet officials such as U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, among others.

The deal’s opponents warn that Foxconn’s need to assemble land for its massive development could lead the village of Mount Pleasant to use eminent domain to force property owners from their homes. In early June, the village of Mount Pleasant passed a measure to designate 2,800 acres in Foxconn’s path as blighted, a legal designation that could help the village take property belonging to holdout owners.

The village’s use of a blight designation may be without precedent in the upper Midwest, legal experts say, and could be tested in court. Blight designations are typically reserved for dilapidated urban properties, not vast swaths of farmland.

In defending their decision to use a blight designation, village officials have noted that it will give them authority to issue bonds that are exempt from both state and local taxes. That could save the village millions of dollars, officials estimate.

But it’s not only village residents who are questioning village officials’ intentions.

“Me, personally, and this is just me speaking, if I were to be under the eminent-domain clause, I would say you’d better pay me 10 times what my house is worth,” said Mahlon Mitchell, head of the state firefighters union and one of nine democrats hoping to challenge Walker in November.

“It’s bullshit,” he said, referring to the village’s current offer to pay land owners 140 percent of their property’s market value.

Jim and Kim Mahoney, both Mount Pleasant residents, said local officials have threatened to use eminent domain if refuse the village’s offer for their land.

“The laws of the state of Wisconsin protecting our private property rights are meaningless,” Kim Mahoney said at the protest rally on Thursday. “My husband and I feel we have an obligation, a responsibility to fight for our rights and those who are not able to fight.”

Village officials said in early June that they had acquired about 80 percent of the land needed for the Foxconn project. Reached on Thursday, a village spokeswoman said she could not provide by press time Friday up-to-date records showing how much land the village has acquired, although she said the village has gotten more since early June.

The Mahoneys said they are fighting to keep a house they had built on Prairie View Drive in Mount Pleasant in early 2017, the Kenosha News reported. They’ve owned the land there for 10 years.

The Mahoney’s ordeal has been cited by opponents of the Foxconn project as evidence of government overreach. Kelda Roys, another Democrat running for governor, produced a campaign ad in late May showing her visiting the couple at their home and denouncing the project.

Matt Flynn, another Democrat seeking the party’s nomination, said during the rally on Thursday that he will use the courts to kill the Foxconn deal if he is elected governor.

“In my view, the Wisconsin Supreme Court should say that private property should not be taken to give to another private owner,” Flynn said.

Jim Cook and his sister Nancy Shutes, both Mount Pleasant residents, said they sympathize the Mahoneys but are nonetheless generally supportive of the Foxconn project.

“There are two people who are still holding out, and I really give them credit for holding out like that,” Shutes said. “It’s great that Foxconn’s coming to bring more jobs, but (the village) should give them what their house is worth.”

Cook said Foxconn’s promise of bringing thousands of jobs to his hometown has been a welcome development. And in large part, he said, the village has paid those who live in Foxconn’s path a fair price for their land and homes.

“If it was really that bad then everybody else would still be there,” Cook said, referring to the deal that homeowners were offered for their land. He said a friend took the village’s offer and is now settled and happy in a different place. “For the most part, it seems like everything is working out.”

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