Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a Jan. 16 WorldNetDaily article:
The city of Palo Alto, California, wants a court to dismiss a lawsuit opposing its demand that the family owners of a mobile home park pay some $8 million for permission to close it down.
Lawyers for the park owners say they are just asking for the “courthouse doors [to] remain open for people, like the Jissers, to make their case when the government wrongfully takes their property.”
As WND reported, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed the case on behalf of the owners of the Buena Vista mobile home park. The owners want to close their business, but with a local median housing price of $2.46 million, the city demands that the tenants be compensated so they can find another place to live.
“No one should be forced to carry on a business that they want to close,” said PLF Attorney Larry Salzman in a statement. “The city is treating the Jissers as an ATM to solve a problem they didn’t cause – the lack of affordable housing in Palo Alto. That’s not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”
Since Unruh cares about telling only one side of the story, that of the Jisser family and their attorneys -- a statement from city officials is relegated to the very last paragraph of his article -- he leaves out pertinent facts.
Like the fact that the Jissers do not, in fact, have to close the trailer park -- they could sell it as a going business. But he has rejected offers to do so. In fact, city and county officials offered to pay the Jissers $39 million for the trailer park, but the familyrejected it, blaming a lawsuit filed by trailer park residents.
It appears the Jissers want an even bigger payday. The plot of land could fetch as much as $55 million for redevelopment into market-rate housing, according to the Wall Street Journal -- more than enough for the Jissers to pay that $8 million to his former tenants and still make more than they would by selling it intact.
The fact that the Jissers are simply choosing between a big payday (if they let their tenants stay) and an even bigger one (if they kick them out) does not fit WND's anti-government narrative. And Unruh is nothing if not a loyal spouter of WND's right-wing talking points.
