Eminent Domain Hits the Links

A mayor wants to seize a private golf club and make it into an exclusive "public" one.

NORTH HILLS, N.Y.--There's been a lot of controversy lately about eminent domain--the government's power to confiscate private property and put it to public use. The furor erupted last year when the Supreme Court decided Kelo v. New London, which rejected a constitutional challenge to an economic development plan in New London, Conn. Many people, like me, were surprised by the result in that case: By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that a city could seize private property and give it to private developers in the name of "economic development."

I thought that was bad, but it turned out I hadn't seen anything yet. I happen to be a member of a privately owned golf club on Long Island called Deepdale. Located in the Village of North Hills, a tiny but very wealthy enclave, Deepdale is a beautiful course that has been in use for over 50 years. It has a fabled history; Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon were members. Now, perhaps emboldened by Kelo, the mayor of North Hills, Marvin Natiss, wants to confiscate Deepdale, and has taken some significant preliminary steps--such as hiring consultants and appraisers--toward starting proceedings to do so.

Read on.