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Saturday, March 03, 2007

Homeless through Condemnation

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posted by Bob at Saturday, March 03, 2007

4 Comments:

Blogger Bob said...

Subject of explosives probe left homeless, lawyer says
Terry L. Dahlen is a former licensed weapons maker whose Bloomington home was condemned after federal officials seized firearms this week, his attorney said.
By Chao Xiong, Star Tribune
Last update: March 01, 2007 – 10:40 PM

Bloomington explosives case expands with munitions find
A Bloomington man who was jailed then released after federal authorities confiscated several firearms and explosive materials from his house has been left homeless after the city condemned his house, according to his attorney.
Terry L. Dahlen, 60, and his wife are living with relatives after a city official said the couple have mice and too much clutter in their basement, garage and back yard, said attorney Joe Rymanowski.

"Normally they don't condemn for that," Rymanowski said. "They say, 'Clean it up.' " Rymanowski said the couple were given until March 8 to clean up the house.

Dahlen has not been charged with any crime and was released from jail Wednesday afternoon. He agreed to be named for this story.

The last few days have been rough, Rymanowski said.

Dahlen has "been reduced to tears," he said. "He's obviously terrified."

FBI agent Paul McCabe said only that the case is still under investigation. The state Bureau of Criminal of Apprehension and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are part of the joint investigation into Dahlen.

Speaking on Dahlen's behalf, Rymanowski said his client is a gun and pyrotechnics hobbyist who used to be a licensed weapons manufacturer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The materials and firearms seized by authorities are left over from the days he made firearms for sale to other hobbyists, Rymanowski said.

"None of it was illegal," he said. "He wasn't building a bomb. He wasn't threatening anybody."

Rymanowski said he's puzzled as to why federal authorities searched Dahlen's house, but added that they have been cooperative and professional.

"My question is: If he's such a menace to society, why didn't Hennepin County charge him?" his attorney said. "I think this is just another level of government harassment. People think gun collectors are nuts."

Federal authorities have not said why or for how long Dahlen has been investigated. The Bloomington and Minneapolis bomb squads were called out to his home Monday in the 1700 block of W. 84th Street. Authorities also searched a commercial retail building at 5200 47th Av. S. in Minneapolis on Tuesday that belongs to his wife, who runs a salon at the address. "Explosive materials" that required a bomb squad and the skills of military personnel also were found there.

Steve Bogdalek, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF, has said the materials found at both locations were not in danger of exploding.

Authorities have said they also found blasting caps and detonation cords at Dahlen's house. His attorney said he also had inert land mines that are sold as collectors' items and clocks in the shape of fake dynamite sticks.

Rymanowski said his client does not now have plans to take any legal action in response to the searches, condemnation of his house or arrest.


Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391 • cxiong@startribune.com

11:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This condemnation tool seems to be quite the "catch all" when someone with some power decides they don't like you.

11:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How much land should the government own?

Posted: March 3, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By: Henry Lamb

Government – at every level – is addicted to land acquisition. Local, state and federal governments are buying up land as if the last acre had already been created.

In a nation that was founded on the belief that private property is sacred – and which limited its federal government to own only 100 square miles of land and that which could be purchased from the states with the approval of the state legislature, and then only for "needful buildings" – why have governments gone on a land-buying binge in recent years?

The answer, invariably, will take some form of the misguided notion, "... to protect it for future generations." Every acre of land acquired by government, beyond that necessary for public buildings, highways, utilities, military bases and the like, is actually stealing from future generations. When government owns the land, future generations cannot own it. Future generations cannot build a home on it. Future generations cannot farm or ranch or log or mine or do anything with it. Future generations can only walk on it, if the government permits it, after paying a fee for the privilege.

Government land ownership is not protecting the land for future generations; it is protecting land from future generations.

The Bowater Company owns more than 100,000 acres of forestland in 14 Tennessee counties. Environmental regulations, and other government restrictions, have made logging in the United States, at best, unprofitable, and at worst, impossible. Bowater wants to sell its Tennessee land.

Environmental organizations immediately demanded that the state buy the land to "protect" it. Savvy politicians, such as state Rep. Mike Turner and Gov. Phil Bredesen, began maneuvering to acquire the land. Bowater said it wanted about $300 million for the land; Bredesen says he thinks the land is worth about $154 million. He is negotiating a deal with The Nature Conservancy which he says will limit the state's cost to about $82 million, plus $9 million per year in interest payments – for 20 years.

A little arithmetic begins to cast a long shadow over such a deal. Assuming that The Nature Conservancy got all its portion of the purchase price from donors, rather than from grants from the federal government (which is not a safe assumption, by any means), the deal would still be a horrible burden for Tennessee taxpayers.

The total cost to Tennessee taxpayers, including interest, would be $262 million. When budget demands for road improvements, education and health care are continually rising, can the state afford to invest this large chunk of money into land that will produce no revenue?

Moreover, the removal of this tract of land from the tax rolls will rob local governments of an important revenue source. At the White County tax rate of $2.28 per $1,000 valuation, local governments would be denied more than $3.5 million each and every year – at current land values. These losses do not begin to include the lost opportunity costs that would occur every time a plot of land did not sell, or every time a home was not built, or every time timber was not harvested.

But proponents will be quick to counter that the state may well wish to harvest some of the timber. No, no, no, no! The state has no business being in business in competition with free enterprise. Besides this, why would the state be able to make a profit at logging if private industry could not?

Proponents will be quick to counter that this wonderful open space would bring eco-tourist dollars to replace the lost revenue and lost opportunity costs. Hogwash with a capital H! Eco-tourism sufficient to replace the investment costs, the tax revenue and the lost opportunity costs would require a stream of people so large that the collective footprint would stomp the biodiversity into oblivion, and the concentration of carbon dioxide (from breathing out) would cause a spontaneous heat wave that would turn the entire region into desert.

Before the Tennessee Legislature considers the governor's proposal, it should first learn how much land in Tennessee is currently owned by the government – federal, state and local. Then it should decide how much land in Tennessee the government should own, and how much should be left in private hands – in a free-market society. Should the balance be 50-50? Should it be 25-75? Or should it be as the founders dictated: no more than is required for "... other needful buildings?"

Future generations will curse this generation, if we steal from them the opportunity to pursue the happiness they deserve, happiness built upon the foundation of privately owned property.

12:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What the hell does this have to do with the subject thread?

12:28 PM  

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