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Dear Editor Gwinnett Daily Post:
This letter is in reference to your Saturday February 3rd front page story titled "What's next for Deshong?
The 200 acre Deshong property was purchased a year ago for $4.3 million by Bermuda LLC. They now believe their property is worth $10.6 million. This is the potential value they attach to development of the property. Gwinnett county has offered Bermuda LLC $5.05 million which has been declined. Now our elected representatives are threatening condemnation. One commissioner must feel guilty, and has called on her co-commissioners to raise their offer to $8.1 million. This is still $2.5 million short.
This is a classic example of government usurping taxpayer rights and property to subsidize their favorite charity, political correctness, or moral agenda. The Gwinnett Board of Commissioners is using force against a private property owner to surrender property for less than the value the owner attaches to it. This is theft piled on top of tragedy.
The first tragedy is using taxpayer money to purchase this property. How long would you tolerate a neighbor's threat of force to use your money to pay for a piece of property the neighbor deems valuable?
If government is instituted by The People and for The People; it cannot do what The People themselves have no right to do. How can I, as an individual, force anybody to give me their property for less than the value they attach to it? This is theft when the individual does it. I submit that theft is also occurring in the Deshong property issue.
The 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated". Gwinnett county is telling Bermuda LLC, "Give us your property at our price, or we'll condemn and seize it." What's about to happen in Gwinnett sounds more like communist China instead of free market America.
I'm afraid most citizens have missed the important heart of this story. That's the part where local county commissioners steal property and freedom based on their perception of the law. Our representatives are breathing life into socialist orthodoxy. Today they are stealing somebody else's property; tomorrow it might be yours.
Wes Alexander
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