Our View: Chandler’s selfishness snubs out property rights

When local governments have locked horns with private property owners over eminent domain lately, the debate has focused primarily on the hefty cost to taxpayers for bad decisions and poor judgment. So too often it's easy to forget how the sweeping power of condemnation can disrupt the lives and dreams of everyday people.

Tribune writer Michelle Reese reminded us all of that with her a story a week ago about the pending closure of Lloyds Complete Auto Supply Co. in downtown Chandler to make way for yet another government office building. By 2010, Chandler will have its edifice of centralization instead of a 60-year-old business where several of its employees have been employed for all of their working lives.

The Chandler City Council has defended this displacement of community history because a 10-year lease on private office space is about to expire for several top administrators including the city manager - and the council itself.

The drive to build a city hall that residents "can be proud of" has blinded Chandler officials to the dangers of massive building debt in these risky economic times and to suggestions that Chandler continue to be innovative in private-public partnerships instead of adding another monument to perpetual bureaucracy.

Not so loudly, but just as clearly, has been the angst of newer property owners and business entrepreneurs who believe older establishments such as Lloyds don't offer enough beauty or pizzazz, holding back their own vision for the future of downtown Chandler.

Of course, it's less trouble to rely on someone else's tax dollars and police powers to knock down decades of hard work than to spend your own money and energy to align your plans with your neighboring property owner's interests.

That's why Aztec Wrought Iron is next on the condemnation hit list. This business of three generations also stands in the way of 120,000 square feet of retrograde government thinking.

Chandler city government used to care more about inspiring trend-setting private ventures, and not adding to the burdens of the small business owner, than about its own wants and comforts. We wonder where the city went so wrong.