House, Senate Hear Eminent Domain Testimony: WCCO-TV4 (Minneapolis MN), 3/13/06

Emotional testimony was heard in the Minnesota House and Senate Monday, over proposals regarding eminent domain.

Some lawmakers want to make it harder for the government to take away personal property for the public good.

One Big Lake, Minn. homeowner, Curtis Hed, said the city put his family through more than a year of stress by first taking legal moves to acquire his property for a grocery store and then abandoning the plans after he prepared to move.

"I just put my family though a year of misery, getting them prepared to be evicted from the house, the only house they have ever known," Hed said. "The house that I had built a fence with my own hands around."

The Legislature is considering a bill to make it harder for governments to condemn public properties for economic development.

---

WCCO-TV4: http://wcco.com