Outrageous property theft by Austin city govt

[shitstorm]

Two years ago today, Joe Del Rio was awakened to find city officials at the door of his lifelong home in East Austin, demanding entry. Before it was over, the Police Department's SWAT team and the Fire Department had been deployed, and Del Rio said he was detained and questioned for about 10 hours because of what officials called a multilevel bunker-like space under the house with suspicious and unusual materials.

After the city billed Del Rio in April for about $90,000 in repairs it said were critical to make the home on Canterbury Street safe, Del Rio sued the City of Austin last week for what his lawyers say was a heavy-handed and unconstitutional seizure of his property without compensation.

"The ordeal they put me through was unnecessary," Del Rio, now 72, said the afternoon before the second anniversary of his forced eviction. "I've gotten the runaround. I think they want the property. Condemning it is a cheap way to get it."

The city released this statement in response to the suit: "The City of Austin has yet to be served with a lawsuit from Mr. Del Rio; however, actions taken by the City at 2006 Canterbury St. were done due to a public safety risk caused by the structure located on the property." (LAIRS)

Del Rio said the space in question started out as a Cold War-era fallout shelter — by no means uncommon at the time — which he later expanded into what he described as a work space when he took possession of the family home.

According to city records, code compliance inspectors visited Del Rio's house in 2008 and 2009 in response to neighbors' complaints about holes. In 2009, records show, he built a retaining wall that he said also elicited a complaint.

Del Rio's description of his questioning by police and city officials in May 2010 suggests that they thought they might have another "Unabomber" on their hands. They questioned why he was shirtless and his hair was messed up. His response was that he had been awakened at 7 a.m. on a Saturday. City crews also found military memorabilia, inoperable hand grenades and a collection of about a dozen firearms in the home. (It's TEXAS, ffs!)

Del Rio's lawyers Monday produced documents stating that Del Rio was a military veteran with a high security clearance who later worked as a part-time security guard for the Austin City Council.

"He guarded the council 22 years, and now nobody's guarding his rights," lawyer Mack Ray Hernandez said.

"They jumped to a conclusion," said his co-counsel, Lou McCreary. "This is a hell of a lot of trouble and angst they've caused our client."

Del Rio also said officials concreted in the basement, fenced and locked the perimeter of the home and removed utility meters, making the house, in its current state, uninhabitable. The suit says that at the time of the seizure, Travis Central Appraisal District records put the house's reasonable fair market value at upward of $172,000.

Del Rio has since bought a condominium in South Austin. Since the seizure, he has been 'allowed' (my finger quotes) to retrieve personal items, although he said the house has been burglarized.

Round Rock structural engineer Jeffrey Tucker, whom Del Rio hired when he was putting in the 9-foot concrete and steel rebar retaining wall, said he inspected the wall and the rest of the house in 2009.

"It appeared it was structurally safe," Tucker said Monday. "I did not see anything that indicated it would fall in."

The Texas Constitution says "no person's property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed without adequate compensation being made, unless by the consent of such person."

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/man-...45041.html

[shitstorm]

JFK urges Americans to build bomb shelters, Oct. 6, 1961

By ANDREW GLASS | 10/6/09 5:23 AM EDT

On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy advised U.S. families to build bomb shelters to protect themselves from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. In a speech on civil defense issues, Kennedy assured the public that the government would soon begin providing such protection for every American.

Kennedy told Congress on May 25, on the eve of his Vienna meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, that his “administration has been looking hard at exactly what civil defense can and cannot do. It cannot be obtained cheaply. It cannot give an assurance of blast protection that will be proof against surprise attack or guaranteed against obsolescence or destruction. And it cannot deter a nuclear attack.”

Then, on July 25, after the Soviets imposed a blockade on West Berlin, JFK said in a nationwide televised speech that “in the event of an attack, the lives of those families which are not hit in a nuclear blast and fire can still be saved if they can be warned to take shelter and if that shelter is available.”

The president went on say: “We owe that kind of insurance to our families and to our country. ... The time to start is now. In the coming months, I hope to let every citizen know what steps he can take without delay to protect his family in case of attack. I know you would not want to do less.”

In the aftermath of Kennedy’s speech, Congress voted for $169 million to locate, mark and stock fallout shelters in existing public and private buildings. A year later, with the advent of the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis, some Americans prepared for nuclear war by hoarding canned goods and completing last-minute work on their backyard bomb shelters.

Source: “The Cold War: A New History,” by John Lewis Gaddis (2005)

[aussiefriend]

At the time, bomb shelters were relevant and could have been essential to the survival of the species if things hadn't gone the way it did. So there.