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Vehement about domain, family fights for its land
Josey1
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Vehement about domain, family fights for its land
By Matthew P. Blanchard and Ericka Bennett
Inquirer Staff Writers
SCOTT S. HAMRICK / Inquirer
Dick and Nancy Saha of Valley Township could lose their home of 30 years. Coatesville wants to condemn it for a recreation center.
You might say the night Ricky Saha snapped was 30 years in the making.
In 1971, Saha's parents bought 48 lush Chester County acres and poured their souls into making the land a home. Living in a trailer at first, Dick and Nancy Saha raised five children while they restored the 250-year-old farmhouse on the property. Today the farm is a cherished family compound, with homes for children and grandchildren.
It is also a piece of property the City of Coatesville is determined to seize.
Those same 30 years saw Coatesville slide into unrelieved economic decline. Looking for a way out, this steel town of 11,000 has pinned its hopes to construction of a 230-acre playland of golfing, bowling, and ice-skating along Route 30 at Route 82.
To build it, Coatesville needs land. A furious protest erupted in 1999 when the city announced it would condemn nine properties under eminent domain. One by one, the Sahas' neighbors were bought out, agreeing to sell for as much as $16,000 an acre.
The Sahas never gave in. At first, they stood to lose 42 acres, leaving them with the house and six acres. But last week, Coatesville declared it might condemn the entire farm because the Sahas weren't willing to negotiate.
That's when Ricky Saha, 45, snapped. As his 71-year-old father argued with city officials, he said to a council member on April 22: "I'm going to kill your ... family."
Within seconds, the younger Saha was grabbed by the chief of police and taken to the station and charged with making terroristic threats against Councilman David DeSimone. At a preliminary hearing yesterday, Saha, free on $350 bail, was ordered to stand trial.
"I said what I said," Saha explained last week. "Whether it was right or whether it was wrong is hard to say until you're put in this place. ... After you see your father pleading, week after week for three years, for his property."
The Sahas remain determined to stop Coatesville. They spent $125,000 of their retirement savings on billboards; a Web site, called www.saveourfarm.com; and, of course, lawyers. A Chester County Court judge upheld the city's condemnation in January. An appeal is pending.
Oddly, the Sahas don't even live in Coatesville.
Their home is next door, in Valley Township. To condemn their land, Coatesville is exercising a little-known state law that allows a third-class city to take land in a neighboring municipality so long as the property touches its border.
"From a governmental point of view, they [Coatesville] have every legal right to do it," Valley Township supervisor Grover Koon said. "But there's a moral obligation that says you shouldn't take what belongs to somebody else."
Coatesville officials disagree.
"That's what eminent domain is all about. It's the misfortune of a few for the benefit of the many," Coatesville city manager Paul G. Janssen said.
When Janssen was hired in 1998, Coatesville had just lost its last supermarket. The average single-family home here is now worth $56,000, less than a third of the booming county's average.
Ordered by the City Council to save the city, Janssen said the "Coatesville Regional Family Recreation Center" will help do exactly that. The $60 million entertainment mecca will feature two ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, batting cages, a go-cart track, and rock-climbing walls. A 270-room hotel and conference center are also planned. At the heart of it all, Janssen said, will be the "total golfing experience" - mini-golf, pitch-n-putt, a driving range, and an 18-hole championship course.
The complex, to be paid for by bond issues, should offer 200 jobs. And Janssen hopes all that golf will draw in young corporate executives who might then move to Coatesville's soon-to-be revitalized downtown.
"It's the perfect magnet for executives looking to master that corporate sport," Janssen said. "There's nothing like it in the Mid-Atlantic states."
Janssen sees the city staging a Manayunk-style comeback. "We are going to revitalize this town. We've had 30 years of being a dysfunctional community, and that's plenty."
The Saha home would fall to make way for the golf course. Critics say golf-rich Chester County hardly needs more courses.
"How many jobs can you really supply with golf? Who plays golf in the winter?" asks Winifred Mayo, the lone member of City Council still opposed to the condemnation.
"This is not a school, it's not a sewer line, it's not a road," Mayo said, questioning the city's power to use eminent domain for a golf course. "It's all for play, and we don't need it."
But County Court Judge William Mahon said that golf courses, like public parks, are a legitimate use of eminent domain.
Another point of Mahon's could prevent the Sahas from holding onto even the six acres originally offered: that Coatesville's condemnation cannot violate Valley Township's zoning code. Now Coatesville officials claim they must condemn the entire property unless the Sahas accept the city's offer that they can keep 12.7 acres - if they drop all litigation.
"They won't even sit down with us to discuss it, so we're going to go for the whole thing," said Councilman DeSimone.
The condemnation will be discussed at the next two council meetings, he said. Those are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 13 and 27 at Coatesville City Hall.
Coatesville will not publicly reveal how much it would pay for the Sahas' land. The city condemned and bought the nearby Snyder property, 22 acres with a house, for $350,000.
Walking the perimeter of their farm last week, the Sahas showed no sign of backing down - and their reasons were all around them. They pointed to the spot where daughter Amy was married in 1983. And to a 30-foot white pine tree, carried here in a cup long ago when daughter Joanne was a Girl Scout. Both daughters have houses beside the farm now, each given a few original acres as wedding gifts from Mom and Dad.
"This is our whole way of life," Nancy Saha said. "I can't imagine what we would do without our house."
To Dick Saha, his family's fight against City Hall has become darkly personal. He's sorry his son Ricky got involved. "I think [city officials] have a tendency to bait him, because he's pretty hot-tempered," Dick Saha said of his son. "Now it's just a matter of vindictiveness."
To Mayo, it's a matter of biblical principle.
"Here's a man who has done exactly what the Lord has instructed," Mayo said of Dick Saha. "He has worked very hard. He has supplied for his family, his children and grandchildren. So we definitely should not covet his land."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/3180625.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Matthew P. Blanchard and Ericka Bennett
Inquirer Staff Writers
SCOTT S. HAMRICK / Inquirer
Dick and Nancy Saha of Valley Township could lose their home of 30 years. Coatesville wants to condemn it for a recreation center.
You might say the night Ricky Saha snapped was 30 years in the making.
In 1971, Saha's parents bought 48 lush Chester County acres and poured their souls into making the land a home. Living in a trailer at first, Dick and Nancy Saha raised five children while they restored the 250-year-old farmhouse on the property. Today the farm is a cherished family compound, with homes for children and grandchildren.
It is also a piece of property the City of Coatesville is determined to seize.
Those same 30 years saw Coatesville slide into unrelieved economic decline. Looking for a way out, this steel town of 11,000 has pinned its hopes to construction of a 230-acre playland of golfing, bowling, and ice-skating along Route 30 at Route 82.
To build it, Coatesville needs land. A furious protest erupted in 1999 when the city announced it would condemn nine properties under eminent domain. One by one, the Sahas' neighbors were bought out, agreeing to sell for as much as $16,000 an acre.
The Sahas never gave in. At first, they stood to lose 42 acres, leaving them with the house and six acres. But last week, Coatesville declared it might condemn the entire farm because the Sahas weren't willing to negotiate.
That's when Ricky Saha, 45, snapped. As his 71-year-old father argued with city officials, he said to a council member on April 22: "I'm going to kill your ... family."
Within seconds, the younger Saha was grabbed by the chief of police and taken to the station and charged with making terroristic threats against Councilman David DeSimone. At a preliminary hearing yesterday, Saha, free on $350 bail, was ordered to stand trial.
"I said what I said," Saha explained last week. "Whether it was right or whether it was wrong is hard to say until you're put in this place. ... After you see your father pleading, week after week for three years, for his property."
The Sahas remain determined to stop Coatesville. They spent $125,000 of their retirement savings on billboards; a Web site, called www.saveourfarm.com; and, of course, lawyers. A Chester County Court judge upheld the city's condemnation in January. An appeal is pending.
Oddly, the Sahas don't even live in Coatesville.
Their home is next door, in Valley Township. To condemn their land, Coatesville is exercising a little-known state law that allows a third-class city to take land in a neighboring municipality so long as the property touches its border.
"From a governmental point of view, they [Coatesville] have every legal right to do it," Valley Township supervisor Grover Koon said. "But there's a moral obligation that says you shouldn't take what belongs to somebody else."
Coatesville officials disagree.
"That's what eminent domain is all about. It's the misfortune of a few for the benefit of the many," Coatesville city manager Paul G. Janssen said.
When Janssen was hired in 1998, Coatesville had just lost its last supermarket. The average single-family home here is now worth $56,000, less than a third of the booming county's average.
Ordered by the City Council to save the city, Janssen said the "Coatesville Regional Family Recreation Center" will help do exactly that. The $60 million entertainment mecca will feature two ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, batting cages, a go-cart track, and rock-climbing walls. A 270-room hotel and conference center are also planned. At the heart of it all, Janssen said, will be the "total golfing experience" - mini-golf, pitch-n-putt, a driving range, and an 18-hole championship course.
The complex, to be paid for by bond issues, should offer 200 jobs. And Janssen hopes all that golf will draw in young corporate executives who might then move to Coatesville's soon-to-be revitalized downtown.
"It's the perfect magnet for executives looking to master that corporate sport," Janssen said. "There's nothing like it in the Mid-Atlantic states."
Janssen sees the city staging a Manayunk-style comeback. "We are going to revitalize this town. We've had 30 years of being a dysfunctional community, and that's plenty."
The Saha home would fall to make way for the golf course. Critics say golf-rich Chester County hardly needs more courses.
"How many jobs can you really supply with golf? Who plays golf in the winter?" asks Winifred Mayo, the lone member of City Council still opposed to the condemnation.
"This is not a school, it's not a sewer line, it's not a road," Mayo said, questioning the city's power to use eminent domain for a golf course. "It's all for play, and we don't need it."
But County Court Judge William Mahon said that golf courses, like public parks, are a legitimate use of eminent domain.
Another point of Mahon's could prevent the Sahas from holding onto even the six acres originally offered: that Coatesville's condemnation cannot violate Valley Township's zoning code. Now Coatesville officials claim they must condemn the entire property unless the Sahas accept the city's offer that they can keep 12.7 acres - if they drop all litigation.
"They won't even sit down with us to discuss it, so we're going to go for the whole thing," said Councilman DeSimone.
The condemnation will be discussed at the next two council meetings, he said. Those are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 13 and 27 at Coatesville City Hall.
Coatesville will not publicly reveal how much it would pay for the Sahas' land. The city condemned and bought the nearby Snyder property, 22 acres with a house, for $350,000.
Walking the perimeter of their farm last week, the Sahas showed no sign of backing down - and their reasons were all around them. They pointed to the spot where daughter Amy was married in 1983. And to a 30-foot white pine tree, carried here in a cup long ago when daughter Joanne was a Girl Scout. Both daughters have houses beside the farm now, each given a few original acres as wedding gifts from Mom and Dad.
"This is our whole way of life," Nancy Saha said. "I can't imagine what we would do without our house."
To Dick Saha, his family's fight against City Hall has become darkly personal. He's sorry his son Ricky got involved. "I think [city officials] have a tendency to bait him, because he's pretty hot-tempered," Dick Saha said of his son. "Now it's just a matter of vindictiveness."
To Mayo, it's a matter of biblical principle.
"Here's a man who has done exactly what the Lord has instructed," Mayo said of Dick Saha. "He has worked very hard. He has supplied for his family, his children and grandchildren. So we definitely should not covet his land."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/3180625.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
PC=BS
i remember the story my father use to tell when he bought his house. his dad told him ther was no way he could afford 21.00 a month for 20 yrs!!!! when dad paid off the house 20 yrs later the taxes were more than 21.00 a month.
recent court ruling said cannot condem to give to another private bisiness,even if taxes would benifit the town or majority of the citisens. CARL
I love freedom, cause a chained dog ain't happy. A southern born child living behind enemy lines in occupied territory
Keep what is yours and welcome, but do not abuse or try to take what is legally mine. Could be hazardous to your health.
SUBMARINE SAILOR,TRUCK DRIVER,NE'ER DO WELL, INSTIGATOR,AND RUSTY WALLACE FAN