"Money was never the issue," Flower Patch owner Mac Livingston said. "The issue was the right to property."
Seated in his Murray office near a big wall map of downtown Salt Lake City, Livingston paints his 2 1/2-year battle with government officials and a rich developer in philosophical terms. His conclusion? The sleepless nights, long meetings and extraordinary costs were worth it.Livingston resisted the city's Redevelopment Agency and Sinclair Oil, owned by business magnate Earl Holding, in their efforts to declare his small flower shop blighted. That would have forced its sale - at market value - to make way for a $180 million luxury hotel.
Livingston won. The Flower Patch still stands at 502 State St. while the nine-story hotel goes up next door without the financial benefit of an RDA designation.
However, victory took a toll. He estimates it cost about $250,000 if legal fees are added to such intangibles as lost work time.
There have been other notable city-hall fighters:
- Robert C. Nelson, former owner of The Magazine Shop, 267 S. Main, rejected the Salt Lake City RDA's attempts to condemn his land and buy it at market value.
He fought for eight years, ending up with an appeals court victory. Nelson eventually sold the property for $2 million, and it is now part of the new American Stores headquarters.
- Artist Arnold Friberg, known for his paintings of George Washington, Biblical scenes and Book of Mormon scenes, waged a victorious battle with the state from 1972-79 to stop I-215 from going through the Holladay property where his home and studio stood.
The house was razed, but state officials eventually moved the highway enough to save the studio and a large plot of land for a new home, according to his attorney Robert S. Campbell Jr.
The Utah Supreme Court also ruled Friberg had to be paid market value of property based on 1979 values, not 1972 values when the state initially condemned the property. "It was almost nine times what the state had offered," Campbell said.
- Louis Benassi struggled with the state over I-215 construction, and even after the highway was built, with a 6600 South interchange practically on his front porch, he remained in his home for many years. He died in January 1997 in a care center at age 80, and a hotel is being built on his former property.
Benassi's half-sisters, Albena Aiello and Norma Ramoselli, also waged long battles with Salt Lake County and the state to keep the family farm from being condemned and taken piece by piece for everything from road widenings to canal covering projects.
Aiello remembers how her parents, Teresa and Joseph Ramoselli, struggled to establish the farm when they moved here from Wy-om-ing.
"It's hard for me to keep calm when I talk about how hard my dad worked on that farm and my mom worked right beside him," Aiello said. "They grew the most beautiful vegetables, and people would come from several different states to buy their vegetables. He fed half this valley, and it didn't matter if you had money or not, you got your vegetables."
Aiello says people don't understand why she and her sister battled so determinedly to keep the farm intact, but it's simple: "It was out of love and pride."
People who fight city hall have a few things in common: the money to do it, the will to quickly learn all about the government and the law, a strategy of some sort, the personal feistiness to stick with their cause, and a hide tough enough to accept being branded as troublemakers by some people.
Kelly Patterson, an assistant political science professor at Brigham Young University and author of "Political Parties and the Maintenance of Liberal Democracy," says there is an inherent conflict within the American pub-lic.
"There's a creed that all Americans share to some degree that they support civil rights and civil liberties and the democratic forms of decisionmaking. But also in that creed is a very strong strain of individualism," Patterson said. "At some point, you want democratic decisionmaking, but if it imposes on the rights of individuals, you have a conflict within the creed itself."
Perhaps nowhere is that more pronounced than in Utah with its love-hate relationship with the federal government.
Patterson says it takes a certain kind of person to clash with government.
"Until they get into it, people don't understand the power government has," he said. "You understand rightly why the founders were concerned about how that power could be wielded."
Flower Patch owner Livingston insists the hotel wasn't the problem. Nor does he oppose one businessman offering to buy another's land in a private deal. He also knows his old building needs to be replaced and is actively seeking development proposals to create something architecturally compatible with the revived area.
For him, the issue was justice: The government should not use the RDA law to force people off their land.
"On this subject (of how things turned out for him) I'm very upbeat, but I'm very saddened that a tyrannous law remains on the books. I'm exceptionally saddened by the behavior of the City Council. It was shameful," Livingston said.
"They didn't think we had the stamina or the money to fight it," he said. "Yeah, I walked the floor many a night in total disbelief that this could happen in this country, and I was determined I was going to whip it."
Livingston says the fight was on his mind constantly and woke him regularly at 3 a.m. "Next to my bed, I had a pile of books of early American history, and every one of them told me that I was right and they were wrong. That's what sustained me through this," he said. "I knew from my personal reading that at birth I was given the right of property. I have a political birthright to speech, life, liberty. Every citizen in the United States has it."
Pearl Meibos shares those sentiments. Her family tangled with Salt Lake County officials over plans to use the RDA law to condemn property owned by her late grandfather, Eugene Croxford, to make way for a shopping center. The center was built but without the RDA designation and without Croxford's land.
Meibos says her family won that case but has two other lawsuits pending.
"A lot of the frustration comes from the feeling of betrayal on the part of your government, that they're doing this to you. It's emotionally very hard and it's made me very, very cynical," she said.
Meibos says she understands why some people just give up. "I wouldn't tell somebody to just roll over, but I wouldn't blame them if they did. I don't want to make it sound as it they're not as strong as I am or as principled. You can figure it (the fight) will take the majority of your time for as long as you're willing to do it and they (governmental bodies) have almost endless resources."
Another deterrent is the reluctance of many people to rock the boat. "I think a lot has to do with the religious upbringing which teaches that you support your leaders" because going against that is seen as somehow unpatriotic, Meibos said. "I don't feel that way. Power corrupts. You have to challenge your government at every turn. Without challenge, without the public, without the press, the power is too alluring."
Meibos says children should be reared to watch the actions of government officials and speak up when necessary.
"I view it as a social responsibility rather than being a troublemaker," Meibos said. "I tried to teach my kids that if you get called to jury duty, you go. You pay your taxes. If you get a speeding ticket, you pay it. But you have to challenge government on its actions. I don't think people should be viewed as troublemakers but as a very important part of what keeps democracy vibrant."