Petition by Charlie Birnbaum
Atlantic City, NJ

New Jersey is trying to bulldoze my family’s Atlantic City home as part of a development plan for an already bankrupt casino.

My parents were both immigrants and survivors of the Holocaust who left me many things: a love of this country, a deep passion for music, and a home right near the boardwalk in Atlantic City. That home has been a source of love and renewal to my family for the past 50 years. But today, our home could be seized and bulldozed as part of a casino development plan.

New Jersey’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA), is trying to use eminent domain to seize and destroy my home as part of a project to complement the Revel Casino, even after the casino recently closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy.

My parents bought the building in 1969 when they moved to Atlantic City. They lived there until my father passed away in 1987. I’m now 67 years old and work as a piano tuner at the casinos. The home my parents left me allows me to work and I’m not going to let it be taken from me.

I’m fighting to keep my family’s home and need your help. Please click here to sign my petition demanding the CRDA drop their unconstitutional attempt to steal my home.

The home is more than a building. It’s is a reminder of my parents and the times our family shared together. When my parents got old, I cared for them in their own home instead of putting them in a nursing home, which I know helped them live longer and happier lives. Over the years, I’ve personally maintained and refurbished the entire building, hanging new sheetrock and repairing brickwork by hand. The first-floor apartment is now given over to my piano studio, and I rent the second and third-floor apartments to long-term elderly tenants at below-market rates.

Eminent domain has traditionally been understood as the power of government to take private property for a public use, like a road or a public school. But New Jersey’s CRDA is abusing eminent domain to take property for purely private development, like shopping centers and high-end boutiques. In fact, the CRDA does not even have a formal development plan in place. They’re trying to take my home just because they think they can.

But with your help, I can show the CRDA that tens of thousands of people oppose what they’re doing to me. Once they know that people around the country are paying attention, they’ll back off.

Click here to sign my petition to save my home from being bulldozed for a casino.

Thank you,

Charlie Birnbaum
Atlantic City, NJ

Wan to tell the CRDA what you think?  Here’s their phone number

Casino Reinvestment Development Authority Phone: 609 347 0500
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: 609-292-6000

More about this case here… http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/nyregion/setback-in-atlantic-city-for-man-hoping-to-save-parents-home.html?_r=0