WHO ARE WE?
WHO ARE WE?
We are an all volunteer, non-partisan grassroots effort without ties to any political or economic agenda except stopping eminent domain for private gain.
We are people very much like Suzette Kelo and we live in neighborhoods like New Trumbell that have been victimized or are threatened by the abuse of eminent domain powers. We are grassroots activists who believe in the democratic process. We come from the full diversity of the political spectrum. Political and financial influence created this abuse, and now the only way to fix the problem is to take it to the people. As Margaret Mead said: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
The Coalition for Redevelopment Reform (CRR)
The lead organization coordinating our statewide grassroots campaign is the Coalition for Redevelopment Reform (CRR) in San Jose. CRR grew out of a group formed in 2001 to fight the proposed taking of approximately 150 properties – “the 40 Sites” – when the Redevelopment Agency sought to take the non-blighted properties and transfer title of all the properties in each site to private developers to build high rise, high density, high priced housing to provide a “critical mass” of shoppers for a proposed mall. Small businesses were also targeted to provide the site for the proposed mall. These takings were successfully fought and the properties saved for their owners. In 2002, the City of San Jose declared a full third of its area “blighted” to create one massive merged redevelopment zone, the largest in the State of California – the entire area was declared subject to the Agency’s eminent domain power to take private property for private gain. In response, CRR was founded and became the nucleus of an effort to organize local groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and now the State to protect communities from eminent domain for private gain. After the Kelo Supreme Court decision, CRR sponsored a statewide event, the “Kelo Call For Action,” that rallied over 300 eminent domain reform activists from all over the state. The response at that event was the genesis of the drafting and filing of the People’s Initiative.
Initiative Proponent Doug McNea:
Doug McNea is President of Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Association, a CRR board member, father of four, Vietnam Veteran, surfer, scientist, and an active member of the California Republican Party as a Nominee for Congress in 2002 and 2004. Doug is a "take it to the streets" activist who is passionate about our personal rights and freedoms. He marched to City Hall to stop the eminent domain takeover of the Tropicana Shopping Center by the San Jose Redevelopment Agency. The ethnically diverse and family-owned local businesses at the Tropicana were threatened by eminent domain for the benefit of a proposed new upscale corporate mall. He has traveled to Sacramento as a citizen witness in support of legislation to defend our property rights. He is a candidate for the 24th Assembly District.
Original Daly City Protective Association (ODCPA) and its political action committee, Neighbors for Responsible Redevelopment (NFRR) - Initiative Proponent Annette Hipona
Original Daly City Protective Association (ODCPA) was formed in Daly City, a suburb on the Southern border of San Francisco, in 1972 to fight a plan to clear the area of homes to make way for luxury high-rise commercial redevelopment surrounding a new subway station. The coming of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) was expected to bring economic vitality to the older, working class part of town. Locals soon found out they were not included in that rosy future. After a long and heated battle with city hall, the neighborhood prevailed and most of the residential area and the homes of 14,000 people were saved from the redevelopment bulldozers.
Democrat Annette Hipona, current President of ODCPA, continues efforts to prevent expansion of redevelopment into residential areas and to increase community involvement in planning new developments. The neighborhood of Original Daly City lies in a 5-block area between two commercial redevelopment areas. – quite literally the “meat in the redevelopment sandwich.” Annette’s family owns an autobody repair shop in one of the commercial redevelopment areas, along with over 60 auto-related local businesses that face the potential of eminent domain seizure. A mother of three, Annette serves on the elementary school board and just announced her candidacy to bring a second voice to the City Council to oppose eminent domain abuse in Daly City and to defend cultural and economic diversity in her town.
Neighbors for Responsible Redevelopment members met the founders of CRR several years ago while leafleting on the dangers of displacement at a regional planning conference in San Jose. The CRR coalition is spreading the word about eminent domain abuse regionally and statewide, providing support and information to help neighborhoods all over California organize and fight the common threat of eminent domain abuse.