[rm_-rf_]

huh? I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights.

It seems like the residents of this neighborhood are old money NIMBYs and either [ex-]Democrat politicians or donate quite a bit to Democratic politicians.

[thaumasiotes]

> I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights.

There are certainly libertarian arguments to be made for honoring the sale.

But I think it's going a little far to claim that overturning a process in which the government assesses a tax on the ownership of your property, doesn't inform you that you owe it, and later sells that property on your behalf without notifying you, "would completely defy the idea of property rights". You're talking about a contract transferring ownership of property, to which the owner of the property is not a party.

You could make a much stronger libertarian argument that the existence of a property tax in the first place "completely defies the idea of property rights".

[quuquuquu]

I do think most libertarians would agree that the city agents, who have sold the street's rights to someone else due to an arbitrary breech of contract, have acted completely in bad faith and have thus nullified their contract with the new buyer

What the city should have done is physically approached the landowners and done a large public outreach to raise the very small public tax due... before seizing it and selling it to anyone. And now the person who has purchased it wants to seek rent, as if their action is somehow beneficial to anyone but themselves. And the city's argument is that arbitrarily selling community property despite poor serving of papers is how business should continue? Yikes.

[ritchiea]

I'm suggesting that people often don't act in line with their proclaimed political beliefs when those beliefs don't benefit them in the immediate.