They Need to Hire the A-Team 

I used to love watching the A-Team. After reading some quotes from various city officials in response to Kelo, and their "redevelopment" plans, I was suddenly reminded of that show. Pretty much all the episodes worked around the same basic premise:

1. Start with a shop owner, or restaurant owner in a poor neighborhood or small town. Usually there will be a scene where this man is being beaten by someone hired by a big developer who wants to take his shop and make is something else.
   
2. Daughter of the shop owner, scared for her father tries to hire the A-Team. It was always the daughter... after all... you had to have a new romantic interest for Face. Feature Hannibal dressed up as a dinosaur at an amusement park.
   
3. Spring Murdock from the VA Mental Hospital.
   
4. A-Team arrives on the scene, create incredible complicated setups to fight these people using the acetylene torch and explosives that seems to be in the back room of every small shop around. You do have an acetylene torch don't you?
   
5. Dress BA up as a short order cook where he says "I Pity Da Fool" a lot.
   
6. Have a big gun fight where nobody is ever actually hit by a bullet, and a car gets flipped after having its tire shot out.
   
7. Cut to shot of Hannibal saying "I love it when a plan comes together." while chewing on a cigar.

It was great because there was the easily identifiable good guy, and the obvious bad guy. Of course, now with Kelo... there is no need for the big developer to hire muscle to beat up the tiny shop owner into selling... all he has to do is go to the city council and get it declared as an "economic development" project. So how are they no longer the bad guy?

If you read the snippets... most talk about the city only taking land if the seller is unwilling to sell. So you're putting a gun to their head? You're allowed to decide whether to sell your property or not... so long as you don't say no? How is this not robbery?

I think the people of New London need to hire the A-Team.