{"id":604,"date":"2014-02-22T09:59:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-22T19:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/?p=604"},"modified":"2014-03-02T13:43:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T23:43:53","slug":"honolulu-mayor-kirk-caldwell-on-a-rampage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/?p=604","title":{"rendered":"Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell on a Rampage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Woman Criticizes Honolulu’s Government, Has Her Protest Signs Bulldozed<\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n
\"Nick<\/a>Nick Sibilla<\/a>,\u00a0Contributor \u00a0\u00a0<\/cite><\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/instituteforjustice\/2014\/02\/11\/woman-criticizes-honolulus-government-has-her-protest-signs-bulldozed\/\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
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How people respond to criticism can reveal a lot about their character.\u00a0 Some might try to debate or reason with those they disagree with.\u00a0 Others prefer to ignore critics. \u00a0City officials in Honolulu take a different approach: They use a bulldozer.<\/p>\n

Choon James is a successful real estate broker with over two decades of experience in Hawaii.\u00a0 But the city of Honolulu is seeking to seize property she\u2019s owned for almost a decade to build what she calls a\u00a0\u201csuper-sized\u201d fire station<\/a>\u00a0in rural Hauula.<\/p>\n

Since January 2010, she has put up signs to protest Honolulu\u2019s use of eminent domain.\u00a0 These signs declare \u201cEminent Domain Abuse: Who\u2019s Next?\u201d and \u201cYouTube Eminent Domain Abuse\u2014Hawaii.\u201d \u00a0For more than three years these signs have been up without any incident.<\/p>\n

\"DSC07929\"\"DSC07926\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But now the city is showing a callous disregard for Choon\u2019s freedom of speech.\u00a0 Back in May,\u00a0Honolulu seized two of her eminent domain protest signs<\/a>.\u00a0 Without her consent, city employees went onto the property and seized and impounded her signs before damaging them. Even worse, the city slapped her with a notice for trespassing, for property she is trying to defend in court.<\/p>\n

After these signs were torn down, Choon placed three more signs there.\u00a0 These lasted just a few months before the city once again seized the signs.\u00a0 This time, Honolulu was much more dramatic.\u00a0 On October 18, city workers, backed by police officers, squad cars and a bulldozer, came by and literally\u00a0bulldozed those protest signs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s actions show a shameful lack of respect for the First and Fourth Amendments.\u00a0 Citizens have a right to protest government actions.\u00a0 The First Amendment was enacted precisely to protect citizens who criticize the government from retaliation.\u00a0 Lawsuits challenging Honolulu\u2019s unreasonable seizures and chilling attacks on free speech are now pending in federal court.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Honolulu is not alone in trying to silence critics who question eminent domain. \u00a0The\u00a0Institute for Justice<\/a>\u00a0has represented citizens in St. Louis, Mo., Norfolk, Va., Tennessee, and Texas who protested abusive property seizures and faced censorship.\u00a0 Out of these four cases, IJ successfully defended free speech in three cases, while the fourth is currently in litigation.<\/p>\n

After 24 of his buildings were taken by St. Louis, Jim Roos painted a giant mural on a building he owned advocating\u00a0\u201cEnd Eminent Domain Abuse.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0But St. Louis labeled the mural an\u00a0\u201cillegal sign\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and wanted to force Jim to remove the sign (and stifle his right to protest) or face code violations.\u00a0 He teamed up with the Institute for Justice and sued the city.\u00a0 In a\u00a0major win for the First Amendment<\/a>, in July 2011, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jim and allowed the mural to stay up.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, IJ has defended\u00a0grassroots activists from a frivolous defamation lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0and protected an\u00a0investigative journalist\u2019s right to free speech<\/a>\u00a0from a vindictive private developer.<\/p>\n

More recently, the Institute for Justice is suing the city of Norfolk for trying to squash a small business owner\u2019s eminent domain protest sign.\u00a0 The Central Radio Company, a repair shop, has been in Norfolk for almost eight decades. \u00a0But Norfolk had plans to seize the property with eminent domain for a private redevelopment project.<\/p>\n

To protest, owner Bob Wilson displayed a huge banner on-site.\u00a0 The city responded by telling Bob he had to take down the sign or face fines of up to $1,000 per day.\u00a0 Fortunately, the Virginia Supreme Court\u00a0unanimously struck down<\/a>\u00a0the city\u2019s attempt to seize Bob\u2019s land; his free speech case is still infederal court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the cases make clear, courts routinely respect Americans\u2019 First Amendment rights.\u00a0 Honolulu should do the same.<\/p>\n

\"DSC07922\"<\/a>\"DSC07920\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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Postscript<\/strong>: Mayor Kirk Caldwell also shut down the owner’s business with Reynolds Recycling<\/a> on October 21, 2013. Public push back forced the Mayor to cut a deal with Reynolds to return to the adjacent city Lot 64 on December 20, 2013. The Caldwell Administration did not disclose that it is on a month-to-month lease. Should the Mayor gets permission from the courts to condemn, the last two commercial zone lots will be decimated and recycling business \u00a0gone.<\/div>\n
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\"DSC07946\"<\/a>\"DSC08057\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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The only valid reason for Mayor Kirk Caldwell to shove this extra expensive fire station onto this small rural community is he owes a plum building contract to a donor! \u00a0The Mayor \u00a0wants to build a huge Kapolei City<\/a> station in the small rural town of Hauula.<\/div>\n
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The Mayor can be contacted at mayor@honolulu.gov \u00a0 \u00a0808 768-4141<\/div>\n
City Council Chair Ernie Martin \u00a0at emartin@honolulu.gov \u00a0 808 768-5002<\/div>\n
Choon James at ChoonJamesHawaii@gmail.com \u00a0 808 293 9111<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woman Criticizes Honolulu’s Government, Has Her Protest Signs Bulldozed Nick Sibilla,\u00a0Contributor \u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/instituteforjustice\/2014\/02\/11\/woman-criticizes-honolulus-government-has-her-protest-signs-bulldozed\/\u00a0 How people respond to criticism can reveal a lot about their character.\u00a0 Some might try to debate or reason with those they disagree with.\u00a0 Others prefer to ignore critics. \u00a0City officials in Honolulu take a different approach: They use a bulldozer. Choon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103,144,149,125,147,148,25,78,143,39,54,50,51,66,141,64,61,151,43,142,150,145,146,118],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-choon-james","tag-city-and-county-of-honolulu","tag-community-development-block-grant","tag-deoccupy-honolulu","tag-department-of-design-and-construction","tag-department-of-maintenance-and-facilities","tag-eminent-domain","tag-fire-chief-manny-neves","tag-forbes-com","tag-free-speech","tag-hauula","tag-hauula-fire-station-relocation","tag-hawaii-eminent-domain-abuse","tag-honolulu-fire-department","tag-institute-of-justice","tag-jesse-broder-van-dyke","tag-koolauloa","tag-koolauloa-sustainable-communities","tag-mayor-kirk-caldwell","tag-nick-sibilla","tag-oahu-general-plan","tag-paul-s-aoki","tag-thomas-t-miyata","tag-winston-wong"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/countrytalkstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}