H -°, L 6° | Tomorrow: 
H 18°, L 6°We wanted to sympathize with you. We hoped for an excuse to take up your case. A few of us even yearned to pound our fists and hurl phrases like “abuse of power” and “dereliction of duties” at the University of Wisconsin and the UW System Board of Regents.
Unfortunately none of the facts merit such a reaction.
Sure, we agree with you on some measures. The recent stalling of legislation that would have allowed for public oversight to ensure UW doesn’t abuse its eminent domain authority was disappointing. And no, these are not “arbitrary limitations imposed on the UW” as the UW System’s website puts it. Although Regent Jeffrey Bartell may have a point when he calls these moves, “extraordinarily high hurdles,” but such moves are necessary to ensure the university does not exploit that eminent domain power is not exploited by the university. Plus, it will hardly derail Wisconsin’s master plan.
But because we are operating under the current law, Brothers Bar and Grill owners Marc and Eric Fortney don’t even have a wobbly bar stool to stand on. Eminent domain law states the university must pay “fair market value” for the condemned property. The Fortneys like to point out they paid $1.98 million to match an offer made by the university back in 2006, and they assume the land should go for at least that much now. Unfortunately, “fair market value” is defined as “the amount for which property could be sold in the open market between a willing buyer and a willing seller” — a price the city determined is actually $682,000.
Seeing as Brothers either had to buy the property or had to get the hell out, it doesn’t exactly qualify as a “willing buyer.” The $2.1 million offer from the Board of Regents seems more than fair in lieu of the land’s actual fair market value.
Furthermore, the Fortneys like to gripe about how costly this move will be. In their Feb. 18 advertisement in The Badger Herald, Marc and Eric wrote, “We will be lucky to make $0 if we are forced to sell our building to the regents. Where’s the profit?”
Ummm, breaking even isn’t a bad thing Brothers. If you come out of this move without losing money, then eminent domain worked the right way —- as graduates of UW yourselves, we hope you’d recognize that you shouldn’t be profiting off the university trying to improve itself.
Now, while the legality of the Board of Regents’ move cannot be disputed, we do have a problem with the communication between UW and the Board of Regents through this whole mess. Namely, there wasn’t any.
The university offered Brothers a deal to buy the bar and secure a new building for the business. Both sides agreed. The Board of Regents deemed the plan too expensive, stepped in and took the deal back. Everyone threw a hissy fit.
Somewhere here someone screwed up. Perhaps the university’s representatives were unaware of how much money they were allowed to offer. Maybe the Board of Regents didn’t fully outline theirits expectations for the deal. Perchance Brothers received horrible legal advice. Whatever the case, it is a sad state of affairs that communication was so poor on such an important issue. Although Wisconsin had every legal right to condemn Brothers’ property, we would like to see a little more good faith from the state’s leading university when exercising such unmitigated power.
In the meantime, Brothers better figure out an answer to the question, where art thou located next?
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I have to admit, I’m interested to read some well-thought out opinions about this, but its really hard to take the article seriously when it is so badly proofread. Maybe next time.
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They seem to forget about the other 15 or so bars they have located across the Midwest. Are they not making money either?
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“…but such a moves areis necessary…”
Really? I think you need to hire new proofreaders.
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Totally agree. Thanks for being a beacon of sanity in the sea of crazy.
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Another poorly written article by the BH editorial staff. Maybe you should have an understanding of how eminent domain works before you publish an op/ed about it.
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why don’t they demolish the worthless chazen art museum to build their worthless music school
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“Seeing as Brothers either had to buy the property or had to get the hell out, it doesn�t exactly qualify as a �willing buyer.�”
What does this even mean? Brothers bought the property willingly. You can’t redefine “willing” to mean doing only what you’d like to do in some made-up reality. I have to pay rent or “get the hell out,” which is why I willingly pay rent.
And where is the “willing seller” in this case? There is none. There is a willing thief (UW) and an unwilling victim.
How does the BH justify supporting theft? Because it’s legalized theft?
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The law does not mean the owner has to be a willing seller. It is a generic assumption of a willing seller meaning any rational person in that position of ownership. It’s a legal term—not literal. A fair price is based upon what other rational people would do in that position. It is based on the principle of substitution. That’s a lesson for another day.
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Legal term or not, it is nonsense to say the seller does not have to be a “willing seller.” A market by definition consists of trades - i.e., willing sellers and buyers. A “seller” who is not willing, is not a seller, he is a victim of theft.
A fair market value can only be determined by trading freely in a market place, whether those people are rational or not. (It’s the freedom that makes it a fair market value.) Fair market value (nor what a rational person would do) cannot be determined by dictate as the UW is attempting to do.
Secondly, free market value is not what determines the terms of any particular transaction. The only value that matters in any particular sale is the value to the individual who owns the property. It is completely perverse to claim that the only person not entitled to use their judgment in influencing market value is the owner.
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Allard, you’re beating a dead horse. We get it, you contend that just because eminent domain is legal make it “right” or “just”, in your eyes. There are plenty of laws like that.
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Nor the number of laws.