ABC News
(Sparta, Ga.) – The story tells us that the railway America on which they were yesterday's highways and made it possible to cross the nation in four days.
This travel evolution is one of the reasons why it made sense to give railways that are still privately owned in most cases, some of the same powers to claim the country of another as a power society, an airport or a public school system.
For this reason, the 72-year-old Blaine Smith, his wife Diane, his brother Mark and his wife Janet (who live next door) are fighting for centuries of history and the US law that a privately owned railway in Sparta, Georgia, can knock on their door, and tell them that they have to sell a three-quarters milk strip that have been in their family since the ERA strip Erofy-e-milk strip in which they are at home, since the ERA-Sklavery strip in which they were at home, in their family, in which they were in their family, was in their family, which is located in their family.
Your country would not be put into service as a park or train station, which you could use as members of the community. Instead, it is for a business interest that the railway company says that it will help everyone-a new 4-mile route of the railway line, which would lead to a quarry and other shops on the other side of the Smith Family Property.
At the moment the quarry is using trucks to move materials. If the railway company gets in the way, the new railway line could increase the profit for the quarry and the railroad. The Smiths are not satisfied with the situation.
“I have the feeling that we were targeted and this certain community was targeted because it is a black community,” Janet told ABC News. “We were described as bad and black for so long. And how will we defend ourselves? “
ABC News asked her whether racism played a role.
“It is racism. We didn't want to use this word, we didn't want to say that, ”said Janet. “But that's why we have a quarry here in this neighborhood.”
The Smith family is the definition of black history in America. One of her great -grandmothers was born here in 1861 as a slave on the Dixon plantation near Sparta, a few hours south of Atlanta. Her father was the slave master.
She had children with the white farmer David Dixon, who was able to protect his family from the racist violence of their time.
One of her daughters, Helen, married James Blaine Smith – they were those who had saved everything they could and bought property in the late 1920s. Her eldest son, James Adolf Smith, told his six children that they should never sell anything.
“And I can tell you that from his dying bed, yes, he said:” You will keep ownership in the family, “Blaine Smith told ABC News.
About two years ago, the brothers and other family members, who are still managing trees in the country – began – letters from Ben Tarbutton, the President of the Sandersville Railroad Company.
Tarbutton told ABC News, he moved back to college after college to run the family business, and carried out the heir started by his great -grandfather in 1916.
“I just think that rural Georgia needs the opportunity,” he told ABC News.
Tarbutton said the new railway line to the quarry could create at least a dozen permanent jobs in the region and help to revive the local economy. He pointed out the sad shop fronts in the city and said they had looked like this for more than 30 years.
With regard to the effects of the line in the area, Tarbutton ABC News shared that they would operate with a round trip per day from Monday to Friday. He also argued that the resources of the quarry are valuable for the entire country as a whole, especially in view of the increased need for raw materials after the passage of the Infrastructure Act of 2021.
“The country is a deficit of the overall rock,” he said. “The necessity of an entire stone that goes into asphalt and concrete, so that it goes on the streets due to the bridges, is that it was needed before this calculation, but now even more.”
He said ABC News that he was still trying to get the Smith family to sell small parts of their country, but would not say how much he offers them.
“I am also a landowner. So far I have really been on the side of the table all the time, ”said Tarbutton. “And what we have always done is that we try to get as much money as possible.”
The Smiths argued that it wasn't enough.
“Whatever he offered was not what it would be worth if we would sell it,” Janet told ABC News. “You tried to minimize the effects of a train and cut them directly through their ownership.”
The Smiths say that there was no relief that would give the railway company the right to use or enter their property without owning it. The company offered to build railway crossings for each of the Smith family's plots that would break into two parts. That would enable the families to go over their country and trees over their country.
When the Smiths were addressed for the first time, the tracks ran directly behind their houses. After expressing their outrage, Sandersville agreed to move the railway line easy to avoid this.
Tarbutton has a great advantage in the negotiation – the power of the important domain. This mandatory acquisition of private property for public use is usually carried out by the government such as a state motorway department or a public supply company such as a gas company.
It is traditionally connected to build something that everyone can use, such as the Central Park in New York or the Hoover dam near Las Vegas.
This practice can feel extremely cruel for landowners. In 1997 the city of New London, Connecticut, SUSETET KELOS Haus enabled it to be sentenced. She fought her case to the Supreme Court of the United States because her country was built a 300 million dollar research center for Pfizer of the pharmaceutical giant.
In a decision that still shocked people today, the court narrowly decided against Kelo in 2005. They said that economic development was a sufficient reason to condemn their country and sell them to private developers. The Pfizer Research Center was never built.
The legal group, which fought for Kelo – the Institute for Justice – helps the Smith family free of charge.
“We currently have a petition that is pending in front of the US Supreme Court in a case from New York and is trying to lift this Kelo decision,” Mike Greenberg, lawyer of the Institute of Justice, told ABC News. “If this is not the one who will do, this could certainly be the case that makes it up there.”
At a recent hearing, judge Craig L. Schwall expressed sympathy for landowners.
“And if I ruled what I thought was morally correct, I would absolutely rule in her favor,” he said.
Ultimately, the judge decided on the railroad and pointed to the law. However, he will not let the head of Sandersville Railroad Company, Tarbutton, condemn the country until the families receive another chance with a higher dish. On February 27, the Smiths submitted the Supreme Court of the state of Georgia.
The Railroad President denied allegations that the smithy would be treated differently if they were white.
“Well, I think that's a gross false characterization. You know that we have developed a straight line from point A to point B, ”he told ABC News. “And we didn't know who the real estate owners were at that time, let alone what they look like.”
The Sandersville Railroad Company is a private unit, but Tarbutton said lines like the one that tries to extend the country's streets.
“The vast majority of the railways are privately owned. And the way this costs, as the infrastructure calls and has and maintains the correctness of the government route -that is borne by the railways, ”he told ABC News. “And if the railways were not dealing with the amount of traffic we are currently doing, it would push back all this traffic on streets – more trucks – it would simply completely clog the North American road system.”
From the sky from the sky, the construction of the new railway line or the new spur to the Smith Family Properties is visible in the country, which other neighbors have already agreed. These tracks were recently connected to a much larger CSX rail line that stretches on the east coast and enables Sandersville customers to transport their goods more easily.
In a statement on ABC News, the owners of the quarry say that it will soon be able to “produce and transport its current annual volume several times” and that “this also benefits the local economy with increasing expenses for fuel, electricity, supplies, food and catering.”
The Smiths hope that a court will let their father's dying wish honor: to keep the country completely.
“I want people to remember that this is America, where we always get the right to freedom,” Diane told ABC News. “And don't let other people be burdened and try to take this little piece of serenity away or steal.”
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