Bush Bashes Riviera Beach Efforts To Condemn For Private Projects
POSTED: 5:04 pm EDT June 1, 2006
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Jeb Bush has questioned the legality of Riviera Beach's effort to get around a state restriction against the power to condemn for private redevelopment projects by executing a contract before he signed it into law.
Mayor Michael Brown said Thursday that he was confident the economically depressed city is on sound legal ground condemn private property for the $2.4 billion condominium, commercial and marina project.
The law went into effect immediately after Bush signed it May 11. The Riviera Beach City Council had held a special meeting a day earlier to sign a contract with its developer, Viking Inlet Harbor Properties.
The meeting may have violated the state's "sunshine" law because it had not been properly noticed, which would make the contract invalid, Bush said Wednesday.
"I don't think they have a legal basis," he said. "To rush to expropriate people's property just seems unseemly to me."
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