This country is at a crossroads. I believe that the eminent domain issue will either define it as a socialist country or the democratic-republic that it is supposed to be.

Recently, I heard about an eminent domain situation in Florida. City officials of Riviera Beach are considering a plan to take more than 2,000 homes by eminent domain. If citizens allow that to happen, this country will be well down the path to becoming a socialist country.

We must stop it. Our senators and congressmen should demand that the action is stopped. I don’t believe that any city in our country has a right to take anybody’s property for the sole purpose of increasing tax revenue. Those private properties are not being taken for reasons such as a need for a new school or a highway. The properties are being taken so the city can demolish existing buildings, and then build condominiums and a yacht club, so city officials can raise more taxes, so they can spend more.

It’s time to put an end to that sort of action, and the time is now, before the situation turns bloody.

Paul Lowell, Rumford