vSAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When the mayor of Richmond, Calif., and a gaggle of activists and homeowners showed up at the Wells Fargo Bank headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month, they were on a mission to speak with the bank's chief executive.
They wanted the bank to drop a lawsuit aimed at stopping Richmond's first-in-the-nation plan to use the government's constitutional power of eminent domain to "seize" hundreds of mortgages from Wells Fargo and other financial institutions.
As Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and the plan's backers approached the bank building, security guards locked the doors. After a bank official told her there would be no meeting then and that someone would call her later, she grabbed a bullhorn.
"I am absolutely not backing down," McLaughlin said, as curious tourists and lunching office workers milled about.
Wells Fargo, three other banks and even the Federal Housing Finance Agency think otherwise.
The banks have filed two lawsuits alleging that the plan is an illegal abuse of eminent domain, which allows governments to seize private property for public use — like a house in the path of a new highway or a piece of land needed for a new park.
Via: CNS NewsContinue Reading....
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