Jackson County’s Greenway Committee has completed a Master Plan for greenways in the county.  The next step is implementation.   According to this press account, committee members are concerned about obtaining permission to use private land. “Of course, we would  rather have a voluntary agreement to cross a property.” says the county’s project manager Emily Elders.

The terminology is important. The greenway does not “cross a property,” the greenway takes a 30 to 50 foot wide linear section of private property and moves it from the control and use of the landowner and gives it to government. Normally, government would use eminent domain to obtain this property and would have to pay the property owner “just compensation” as required by the Fifth Amendment.

But why use eminent domain and pay just compensation, when government has other tricks it can use.  The Greenway Committee is looking at the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority?s sewer easements.  If they can slap a greenway easement on top of the existing sewer easement, the greenway can built on private land without asking the landowner’s permission or using eminent domain.

As with so many other well-meaning projects supported by activists at the local level, the end justifies the means.  If you can create a vocal minority that is able to convince a majority of the commission, you can disregard fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution, in this case the Fifth Amendment.

James Madison warned about the ?tyranny of the majority? in Federalist #10.  When a government fails to provide constitutional protections for individuals and a common passion is felt by a majority, “there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.? Such governments ?have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.?

If the committee members, county staff and commissioners have not read Federalist #10, they should.

By the way, JLF research shows that people don’t like being forced to have a greenway on or next to their property.

Raleigh?s Neuse River Greenway: Nice place to visit, but you wouldn?t want to live next to it