Use of eminent domain by YSU and Youngstown isn't what Jefferson had in mind

EDITOR:
According to Thomas Jefferson, we created government to secure our God-given rights. One of those rights, as spelled out by the Fourth Amendment, is to be secure from unreasonable seizures. Youngstown State University with the aid of the City of Youngstown seems to have forgotten that in their latest threat to take property by whatever means necessary. Their joint effort is to build a road and/or walkway through private property of persons who do not want to leave their property.
The property owners have been in limbo over a year, afraid to improve their property, afraid that they might loose the investment in their property, all the time with the real threat to loose their property lingering.
The city has hired a consultant firm to sell a preconceived plan in the guise of linking Youngstown State University with the downtown area.
The plan now before city council would result in the taking of private property by force. The plan has almost no local support.
On the surface there is no plan other than rezoning the property involved, and then take it by eminent domain at a reduced price. But in reality it was designed to sway the uninformed toward supporting the issue through the guise of "redevelopment".
Like true dictators, the planning commission has stated: "The city has the right to eminent domain and is prepared to use this right if absolutely necessary to acquire a particular property." For the property owners it translates to: Instead of doing business, and enjoying your property, you can move somewhere else or go out of business.
Besides being completely morally wrong, the whole idea is rather stupid. We elect a city council to handle basic services such as police and fire protection. We do not have a city government to take public money and invest it in highly speculative plans that benefit no-one.
A number of people at the last council meeting concerning the plan questioned why they were trying to spur the rezoning of the area if not to devalue the future value of the property. Youngstown State University's vision of their students spending time at the university and then going downtown to have dinner and maybe shop or take in a jazz concert is pie in the sky at its worst. Even native Youngstowners know that there is absolutely nothing stopping the students from going downtown now.
Also, city council has a duty to the business owners of Youngstown. Redevelopment is not the destruction of existing businesses. There is no opposition to Youngstown State University building their building. They do not need to destroy existing businesses to build a business school building.
After Thomas Jefferson stated the purpose of creating government, he wrote "that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
JOSEPH ROBERT GRENGA
PAULA JEAN GRENGA
Boardman