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 The latest reports on eminent domain scandals :

Eminent domain dilemma
By Tim Cavanaugh, Los Angeles Times
Even if you don't buy the popular claim that this or any other neighborhood has a "right" to high-quality retail, you can understand the frustrations at work here. For 16 years, the residents of Vermont Knolls have listened to rhetoric about exciting new developments, which has invariably ended in sniping about whether absentee landlords are worse than feckless city officials.

State voters to weigh in on changes to law
Two amendments expected on ballot
By the San Diego Union-Tribune
A proposed constitutional amendment to limit the ability of cities and other local agencies to use eminent domain powers to take homes and businesses has qualified for the June ballot. A counter-initiative primarily sponsored by cities also is expected to qualify within the next few days and would appear on the same ballot. That measure, also a constitutional amendment, calls for restricting eminent domain as well, but would give more leeway to local governments than the competing measure.

Newport dangles eminent domain over tennis club
Leaders hope that owners of a tennis facility will want to negotiate with them about a site they want for a City Hall
By JEFF OVERLEY, Orange County Register
After years of searching, leaders here may finally have found a new home for City Hall. There's just one catch – the land's not for sale. No matter, officials say. In what's shaping up as a bruising fight, politicians are considering making an offer that the owner of an East Coast Highway tennis club can't refuse: Sell willingly or risk facing eminent domain.

Adaptation after annexation
Residents recently added to Clovis deal with disruptions, development
By Marc Benjamin, Fresno Bee
Some new Clovis residents are getting a crash course in city government three months after their property was annexed. They joined Clovis after being told they could keep their wells, septic systems, farm animals and their right to farm. They quickly found their street torn up, phone service, mail delivery and trash pickup disrupted, and new housing tracts proposed in a neighborhood accustomed to big lots and rural quiet. The new Clovis residents didn't expect city life to be such an on-the-fly learning experience. "This has become a part-time job for me," said resident Betty Kemp, a green file folder overflowing with documents by her side.

Zoning change looms over Oakland firms
Rahims and other industrial manufacturers and suppliers already were feeling the squeeze of encroaching residential development
By Cecily Burt, Oakland Tribune
There is a way of tying tea leaves together so that when the aromatic ball is steeped in hot water, it mystically blooms into a beautiful flower. Somehow that seems fitting, given the artistic leanings of the sister/brother owners of Numi Tea. Reem Rahim is an artist and her brother Ahmed Rahim is a musician and photojournalist who ran tea houses in Europe. Numi Tea, launched six years ago, employs 23 workers and is growing bigger every year. It is just the kind of industrial business Oakland is trying to court — one that produces jobs, not pollution. And one that boosts Oakland's visibility, with the city's name appearing on every fancy package sold at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Williams Sonoma. But the shrinking supply of available industrial land — and the intention of city officials to change the area's zoning to allow morehousing — has Numi's owners worried about their future in Oakland. They fear they won't be able to find a larger industrial space in Oakland should they outgrow their leased office/warehouse headquarters on 22nd Avenue, where it abuts Interstate 880. Long before a city committee voted last week to transition the area to allow a mix of housing and commercial development, the Rahims and other industrial manufacturers and suppliers already were feeling the squeeze of encroaching residential development.

Sanders shifts gears on sale of city land
Effort to pay down deficit stalled by limits in charter
By Matthew T. Hall, San Diego Union-Tribune
Mayor Jerry Sanders, who during last year's election campaign promoted selling San Diego land to reduce a massive pension deficit, said yesterday he now opposes the idea because of restrictions in the city charter. But he said San Diego should sell some land to address another growing problem: the delayed capital needs of a city with a crumbling infrastructure.