Candidate Marostica Sends Out Absurd Mailer Misrepresenting His Position on Eminent Domain
On March 16, 2004, then City Councilman Don Marostica seconded a motion to impose Eminent Domain on the Hein family property in Loveland. Despite pleas from the family and the public, Marostica was active in trying to assist a fellow developer (KB Homes of California) obtain through government fiat what they were either unwilling or unable to obtain from the proper owners through normal means.
The issue involved the proposed Aspen Knolls development on Taft where a developer decided to build but didn't have enough property adjacent to Taft for the turn lanes. Instead of scaling back the density or obtaining the needed easements through fair compensation of the adjacent property owners, the developer sought help from elected city officials like Marostica instead.
Ignoring public pleas for respect of individual property rights, Marostica voted to condemn private (not abandoned) property for the sole purpose of facilitating a fellow developer's project to proceed. The easement wasn't required since nothing had been built yet, but in order to maximize developer profit by densely populating the project, a better access in and out of the property from Taft was required and nothing but individual property owners were in Marostica's friend's way.
On July 12, now House District 51 candidate Marostica, sent out a flashy color political mailer saying:
"Don believes in private property rights and will fight to strengthen the rights of the individual property owner.....Don favors eminent domain only for truly legitimate public purposes, such as roads."
The spin you will hear from Marostica is the following: The property was only being used as roadway to access the develpment - therefore, the actual property was going towards a city use instead of private development. As an example, Marostica must believe that any house in the city of New London taken for private development that happened to stand where a future access road in or into the development was needed is OK to take using eminent domain. In either case, Marostica decided the private property owners in Loveland didn't deserve to keep their land if a developer needed it to widen the access to his development even before it was built.