Steve M: "Because I think you're flat wrong about that."

I'd lay odds that you never even heard of this Waikiki case until I brought it up.

It is my take that Kelo was unnecessarily expansive, in that the Court ruled that the pursuit of an increased municipal tax base was indeed a "public purpose" in and of itself, i.e., increased property tax revenues would be derived from the re-development of what the Court's majority called "depressed" areas, which would allow an eminent domain action to occur and comply with the Fifth Amendment.

At the same time, however, the Court for whatever its reasons chose not to further define the term "depressed" as it applied to a community, other than to imply by ommission that said community did not necessarily have to be blighted to still fall under the definition. Rather, "depressed" means whatever the controlling legal authority defines it to be - in our case, that would be the Honolulu City Council, which holds court over all manners of planning and zoning issues.

Thus, once Kelo became case law, the City Council moved immediately to define Waikiki's Beachwalk area as "depressed". While Beachwalk was indeed aging, in that most of the structures dated from the 1960s, it most certainly wasn't blighted.

Ironically, property values on Oahu have since dropped markedly, as they have in most metropolitan areas in the western United States, and the City & County of Honolulu will probably not see any perceptable increase in its property tax revenue stream from Waikiki Beachwalk for quite some time.

And all the greater Honolulu community has derived from this sorry affair is a lot of displaced elderly kama'aina, the loss of a really great Italian restaurant in "Trattoria", and increasing numbers of civil lawsuits -- because apparently, Donald Trump is now claiming that he merely licensed his name to the development and is not the property's actual developer, and some investors are now crying foul.

In fact, I cut my own teeth in Honolulu City Council politics, and helped lead a significant realignment of that body back in 1988 after the council voted to rezone a very popular local surfing site in east Oahu, Sandy Beach (near Haunama Bay) from preservation to resort. Needless to say, we managed to stop them, got three of them out of office (including the then-Chair), and today that entire shoreline is now known as Ka Iwi State Park, thanks to our efforts.

In more recent times, two pro-development members, Andy Mirikitani and Rene Mansho, were convicted of public corruption and removed from office. Just this year alone, we've experienced the deaths of two of the council's most respected members, Chair Barbara Marshall in March, and then last month of longtime member Duke Bainum, who had just returned to the council in January after a four-year political hiatus.

(Why does it always seem that the good ones die prematurely, while the bums generally remain in place?)