(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are published for discussions purposes only.)
By Barry Goldwater Jr. and Evan Bolick, Rose Law Group litigator
If a tea party started the American Revolution, a brake shop in Mesa started a revolution of a different kind in this state to advance private property rights.
The year was 2001 and Arizona’s third-largest city sought to seize Bailey’s Brake Shop in order to facilitate a redevelopment plan. The public outrage that followed was so pronounced it led to a statewide measure in 2006. Proposition 207, the “Private Property Rights Protection Act,” was passed overwhelmingly, placing significant new restrictions on what governments in Arizona could do to harm the value of one’s private property.
Why this political trip down memory lane? Because some politicians at the city of Phoenix are now acting as if this history, or the law, doesn’t exist.
