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eBay Motors. Let's ride. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories Podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And up next, we bring you Blair Cornell to tell you the story of his family, their experience with special needs, and what Blair is doing as a result. I went off to college, to Ohio University, and that's where I met my wife Kat. We met freshman year and were good friends for those first couple of years, and then took that plunge and decided, are we going to take this risk to jeopardize our friendship and maybe date? And I'm so glad that we did, because we started dating and never looked back and have been best friends ever since. We graduated in college in 2004, and I convinced Kat to move back to my hometown here in Dayton, Ohio, where I knew I was going to be working in a family business, financial advising, wealth management business that I had wanted to work in since I was a little kid with my dad. And she trusted me and believed in that, and so she followed me back to Dayton, and that's kind of how we ended up here. Kat and I got married in 2006.
Kat is a CPA, so she was in the accounting field for a couple of years, and then she went on to work with a larger firm, LexisNexis, as a financial analyst, and did that for a couple of years. 2008 came and we had our first child. Kaitlyn was born and changed our lives forever. Shortly thereafter then, we welcomed our second child into the world, and that was Carter. And that's really where our lives changed significantly. In 2010, on August 23, 2010, I remember the day like it was yesterday, Kat and I were driving in for our 20-week ultrasound, and we found out some exciting news that we were having a little boy, but we also found out some devastating news that he was going to be born with moderate to severe special needs, if in fact he would even survive. For us, we had made a decision that we were going to make the most of this. For several weeks then, we continued to try to find answers and figure out what was going on, and we went down and had very good care down in Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's.
And that's a top hospital in the country, and we had a great team of physicians that answered a lot of questions and helped to get us kind of on track for what we were going to be expecting. Meanwhile, Kat was very sick. She didn't really eat much for about four or five months while she was pregnant with Carter. She was not able to keep any food down.
She had extreme hyperemesis, which is extreme nausea, and that's what prevented her from really being able to eat much. So she was on a lot of supplemental nutrition, which was taxing for her and for me, caring for our daughter Caitlin at the time, too, before Carter was born. And so that was a tough time as our family had to adapt to that and figure that out. But we were also excited for the journey that God was going to put us on when Carter was born. And in 2011, January 4th, 2011, we welcomed Carter, Thompson, Cornell into the world. And that's really when the journey began for what God had in store for us and the plan that He had for us that we couldn't have foreseen back when we had just Caitlin or before when we were just getting married. You think you are going to be heading down one path and you realize quickly that there's a bigger plan that we don't all know the answers to. And so Carter was born in January 4th, 2011, and was in the NICU at the hospital for 10 days.
And then he came home. From there, we started to adapt to what it was going to be like to live with a child with special needs. When you hear that a child certainly is going to have challenges, you're heartbroken. And you go through that denial and that feeling of sadness. And I think, at least for me, you're a little selfish at first, wondering, what's this going to mean for me?
And how much harder is this going to be for me? And how is this going to change our family and all the plans that we had and how that's no longer going to be exactly the way I had planned it? But then I think over time, you start to evolve into this is no longer necessarily just about me and a challenge for me. But there's an opportunity for me and for others to reshape us and to be able to say, hey, this is a positive and this is a blessing.
Because at the time, I would have told you I have no idea how I'm going to be able to do this and I'm not sure I can do this. But when you're in that moment, when you have a child, you'll do anything and you find a way. Carter surpassed a lot of doctors' goals just from the fact that he was born full term. A lot of doctors thought he might have been preterm, which could present more challenges. And the fact that he was full term was a big win and a big success. Then in the hospital, he had a lot of things that we weren't sure about, like hearing and eyesight tests that seemed to be going OK. And so then when he came home, there were certain things we didn't have to worry as much about and other things we had more to worry about. But Kat, who was staying home with our kids at the time, spent a lot of time researching and learning what she could and then going to lots of doctors appointments and meeting with different specialists.
And so there were lots of unknowns and a lot of uncertainties for those first few years. But that's really when Carter started taking on his own and really doing well and started surpassing, quite frankly, what we'd all had expected in those first few years of his life. Carter to this day is somebody that we, you know, always are wondering what's coming next. But he continues to surprise us in a lot of ways. And you've been listening to Blair Cornell tell the story of his family.
You're having a boy. And the bad news, as he saw it initially, his boy would have special needs. That is, if he survived at all. One thing we heard clearly, though, from Blair is that he was excited to find out what journey God had for him. And clearly his faith life had so much to do with how he handled this. His initial response was a selfish one.
How would this affect me as opposed to, well, might this be an opportunity? And when we come back, we're going to find out more about how young Carter changed Blair Cornell's life here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give. Hey, you guys, this is Tori and Jenny with the 90210MG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by NerdTechODT. We recorded it at iHeartRadio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that NerdTechODT Remedapants 75 milligrams can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango?
It's true. I had one that night and I took my NerdTechODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by NerdTechODT Remedapants 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, NerdTechODT Remedapants 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCMedicareHealthPlans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop. But for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot.
And I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we're back with our American stories and Blair Cornell's story. After the birth of their first child, Caitlin, Blair and his wife, Kat, found out that they were about to have another child.
A boy who's going to be born with moderate to severe special needs. Let's pick up where we last left off. In 2006, I was driving home on a summer night. And I came into the house and I looked at Kat and she said, you've got to help me. I've had a really rough day and I don't really know where to go or what to do or how to get Carter back on track. He's had a rough day. And I said, well, what can I do?
And she said, I don't really know. So I walked over and sat down next to Carter, knelt down next to him and said, Carter, what's going on? And he couldn't really talk. He was crying and tears ruined on his face.
He was just very upset and frustrated. And I thought, well, maybe I could take him for a ride in my car. And I had a fun convertible at the time. And I said, Carter, do you want to go ride for a ride in daddy's convertible? And he looked up at me like a light switch was flipped and said, ride in daddy's convertible?
And I said, yeah. And he said, let's go. And so I remember carrying him out to the garage that night. I could just feel his chin resting on my shoulder as we bounced along the way out to the garage. And I strapped him into the convertible and buckled him up and away we went. And that night I watched all of his fears and tears and frustrations really go away. And it was a pretty incredible experience to see just a simple car ride really change his life.
And I thought to myself, that was pretty incredible. There's got to be something more to this. And as I talked with more people and Cat and we experimented, we realized that that was a big trigger for Carter. Kids with special needs, they have triggers. And some of them, it may be cars. For Carter, it's certainly cars, but also music.
Those are triggers that can kind of distract him and put him back on track and really kind of help reshape how that day is going to go. So after I experimented with that, we realized there was more we could do with this. And we went to work in creating a nonprofit that we formed that we call Joyride. And Joyride was formed at the end of 2016. And we launched our first event in 2017. And Joyride is all about kids, cars, and smiles.
That's our tagline. It's pretty simple. It's just getting together kids with some amazing cars to put a smile on their face.
And it's a pretty simple thing when you think about it. But it's something that can be very moving, not only to the kids, but certainly their families. But I think everybody that comes to our events, whether they're a car driver or they're a volunteer, it's a way for people to feel fulfilled in their life in giving back to a community of people that tend to get overlooked. Joyride started out at our very first event. We had 12 cars and about 45 kids. And our biggest event, we've had 30 cars and almost 150 kids. So probably 500, 600, 700 people that were there in total when you factor their families and friends and all the volunteers. It was so it's been a fun, fun way to see people gather and give back in a big and meaningful way.
And as we continue to see Joyride grow, I don't know where it'll go, but I can tell you that with the impact that it's had just on me personally, it fuels me and continues to push me harder to have more events, bigger events, and reach more kids. I've got four kids now. Brady and Davis were born when Carter was just three years old. And Brady and Davis were born.
They're twins. And I would tell you that they have, even though they're several years younger than Carter, they've kind of become a big brother to him in some ways and how they already help him and give back. It's neat to see them be excited to come to Joyride events to want to give back in the same way that Carter's older sister Caitlin does. And that's really what it's all about is getting an event pulled together for the community to come together.
But to realize we can all hit the pause button on us and maybe find a way to give back to others. We're trying to make this the most the most high end that we possibly can to make these kids truly feel like a VIP. You want to try to bring cars in that aren't cars that you'd see every day on the street. That's what makes it special, makes it unique. So the cars that we have there are very unique.
We have really typically a lot of the exotic or really high end cars like Lamborghinis and Ferraris and McLarens. And, you know, really anything that you would probably turn your head out on the road and think that's not normal. That's not something you see every day, at least in most areas.
That's what we have at our events. And I also kind of have a little chip on my shoulder when it comes to siblings of kids with special needs that they get to do all the sporting events and the sleepovers and everything else. And their sibling can't. And I think it's OK that they get to go to an event and they don't get to ride in these cars. But Carter does and Carter's friends that also have special needs do, but their siblings don't.
And it's not that I'm trying to exclude them. I'm just trying to make it that much more special for our members of Joyride, which are the kids that have special needs. But I'll tell you, the story that sticks out to me the most was at our very first event, believe it or not. At a very first event, there was somebody who came to our event, a driver that came to our event. He had probably the nicest car at the event. He was driving a Lamborghini Aventador, which for those of you that don't know much about cars, it's a half a million dollar car. So it's a very expensive car that Lamborghini has.
It handles and performs as well as anything out there. But this driver looked at it purely as it's just a car and it's a car to be used here for today to create happiness for these kids. He didn't care if kids were standing on the seats. He didn't care if kids were rubbing up against it.
He didn't care. It was just a car and it was not going to he was not going to guard it and not let anybody really get to enjoy it. It was there for the kids to enjoy. And I'll tell you, I'm always walking around a little bit and making sure that parents and kids are respecting these cars because they are very expensive cars and not everybody feels like this driver did. But on this particular day, this driver was there and I watched his interaction with these kids all day long. And after the event, I remember watching him talking to one of the kids, the members from Joyride, and it was a scene that you would almost see from a movie. He was kneeling down next to this little boy that the boy was telling him about how he was scared because he had some treatments coming up that he wasn't sure how it was going to go. And this little boy had all kinds of challenges and he had some pretty intense medical treatments that were coming. And this driver knelt down next to him, took his hat off that the boy had kind of taken a liking to and said, well, I've gone through a lot of medical challenges myself, too. And this hat is my magic hat that's helped me get through all of that.
And when I wear this hat, it protects me to make sure that I don't feel any of that pain or I don't worry because I'm going to give you my hat and you wear this hat and that's going to help get you through all those challenges. And you could see probably 10 volunteers watching that interaction and they're all in tears watching this driver. And I pulled him aside at the end of the event and I said, I just watched that and that's amazing that you have that outlook. And he said, look, I've gone through a really tough time in my life. I've gone through a divorce.
I faced a lot of medical challenges myself. And he said, I bought this car thinking it would bring happiness to me. And it has. It's been a fun toy to have. But I've never experienced joy with this car or joy like this in my life before.
This is one of the best days of my life and seeing that I can help somebody else has really moved me. He said, I can't wait to come back and do it again. And that's exactly what Joyride is all about.
And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by Robbie Davis and a special thanks to Blair Cornell for sharing his story, his family's story and what he did about it. What he did about it in his own community, starting Joyride. Carter is having a rough day and he thought maybe I can take him for a ride in daddy's convertible.
By the way, what parent hasn't thought this at some point or another to solve a problem? I watched all of his tears and fears go away. One simple car ride. It was a trigger.
Well, it can distract him and put him back on track. Indeed, it did. And the scene I'll always have in my mind is the driver and his magic hat with that young boy and what it did for the driver as well as the boy. A story of compassion, of love, of so much more.
Blair Cornell's story, the Joyride story, Fast Cars and Big Smiles here on Our American Stories. Hey, you guys, this is Tori and Jenny with the 9 0 2 1 OMG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by Nerd Tech ODT. We recorded it at I Heart Radio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango?
It's true. I had one that night and I took my nerd tech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, Nerd Tech ODT Remedapants 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners, too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. This is Our American Stories, and now it's time for our Rule of Law series, where we tell stories about what happens when the rule of law is present or absent in our lives. Our own Alex Cortez brings us this next story. This is the story of three residents of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My name's Craig Richardson. I'm an economics professor at Winston-Salem State University. I'm Matthew Bryant, and I've practiced law in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My name is Paula Smith. I sell flexible benefit plans, so FSAs, HSAs, HRAs.
I have a wealth of knowledge of HSAs and FSAs, so if anyone needs to ask me questions, I can answer those questions. I was driving on my way to work, and I heard a story on my local NPR station about a couple named James and Phyllis Nelson. They bought this little dream home outside of Winston-Salem.
Surrounded by hardwoods, looking out their bedroom window, they could see Pilot Mountain. What they started to relay was something which was shocking to me, which was the fact that one day when they woke up in 1996, this was about 17 years earlier, they woke up to see the government workers driving stakes in their lawn. They came out to ask what was going on, and they said, well, this is where a road's coming through. A highway, a future highway, and it's the center line of the road, and it's going to go 200 feet on each side of these stakes. It turns out that that road goes right through its kitchen, right through the middle of its home.
This whopping surprise arrived for Paula Smith, too. Bought the house that we lived in for 29 years in Winston-Salem, so at that time we didn't know anything about a highway coming through our neighborhood. There was a lot of years there that we were living not knowing what was about to happen to us, that's for sure.
Now, when we hear a story like that, you know, I think we know that sometimes this happens. We have eminent domain, which means the government has the right to have public projects, and they buy out homes. But what gave the twist to the story was that the Department of Transportation was using a law passed by our General Assembly in the late 80s that allowed the Department to make road plans that would restrict the development and use of property indefinitely until the Department got around to acquiring and getting ready to construct the roadways. It turns out that there's something called the Transportation Corridor Map Act. What gave this a very unusual twist was that in North Carolina, unlike any other state, which also there are other states that have map acts, but unlike any other state in the United States, there was no time limit on when these roads could be built. In other words, the DOT, the Department of Transportation, could plan a road, could say it would happen sometime in the future, and essentially have carte blanche to decide whenever that road would be built.
And these were called road corridors. Now, why would the DOT do something like this? Well, the original intent was that this idea would save taxpayers money. The idea behind that was that if we designate your house in a road corridor and we're going to eventually buy your house out, we don't want you to put in a new kitchen. We don't want you to add a garage or add value in any way because that's going to cost taxpayers more money.
So we're going to put you in this road corridor and we're going to say that basically any idea you have about improving your value of property is frozen. Now, for the vast majority of states, they have about less than a year they have to act or the corridor goes away. But again, in North Carolina, there was no time limit whatsoever. This gave the power to the state a tremendous amount of power and it locked people like James Nelson in for years, if not decades. I had never really heard of this law. However, they used it in Winston-Salem back in 1997 and restricted hundreds and hundreds of properties and didn't pay for it. And the owners were all sort of stuck waiting for the department and the department never really got around to funding that road and building it.
So that had festered since the 90s through the 2000s until 2009. We put the house on the market in November of 2006. So we've redone all this stuff.
It's now better than it was. Let's sell this house and let's go find something else we want to build. Realtor comes out, puts a sign in the yard.
She does her due diligence. She comes back and she says, literally about two weeks after the house had been on the market, she comes back and she says, I think you've got a problem. She said, your house is going to be taken by the DOT.
I said, no it's not. It's going to be like three or four houses down away from us. It's not coming through our yard. They're not taking our house. She said, oh yes they are. They're taking your house.
They're coming all the way to the corner now. And I was like, oh no, now what? She said, well I have to take the house off the market. There's no other buyer for your house other than the DOT. She said, no one's going to buy your house knowing that eventually a road's coming through and your only buyer is the DOT. I went, oh, okay, well this is interesting.
Now what do we do? And she said, you sit and wait. And I thought, this is not right.
This is just not right. You can't just tell me I can't sell, tell us we can't sell our house. And she said, well I in good faith as a realtor cannot sell your house to anyone else. So we took the house off the market and we sat there and went, okay, now what?
And one of Matthew's business clients was also a victim. And B. Roth Oil Company was sitting on a very valuable piece of property that was, you know, underutilized. It was basically they had to park used cars on it because for 20 years the department had not let it, or at that time about 15 years, had not let it get a building permit to do anything because it was trying to keep property prices down for its ultimate acquisition of the properties. And my immediate reaction on that day in late summer of 2009 was, that cannot possibly be the law. It struck me immediately as violative of your right to freely use your property. As long as it conforms with zoning, they can't stop me from doing something legally permissible on my property. I said, they can't stop us doing things legally.
So I said, okay, well let me figure this out. And in the span of a day or two, I figured that this kind of legal gimmick had been used, because it's not too novel, you know, if you want to pay less for something, just don't let anybody freely use it and the price will go down. They had done this thing 25 or 6 times throughout the state. Well, they had tried that in Florida in the early 90s and it had been almost immediately challenged and struck down as unconstitutional. So we said, well they can't do this. The department will tell them to just give us the building permit, or buy us, and we'll tell them this is why.
And lo and behold, we went back and forth with the Department of Transportation and they had no interest in considering what we were doing, or really undoing their practice of restricting these properties. And so they told us to just, you know, jump off a cliff. I said, we've got to do something about this. And the client, B. Roth, and my partners all said, yeah, this is unconstitutional.
Let's go figure out what to do. And we're listening to our Rule of Law series. North Carolina legislators and the DOT are clearly violating the rule of law by completely disregarding their own citizens' constitutional rights to own property and not have it taken without just compensation. That's the eminent domain clause, eminent domain clause these people were referring to in the story. All to make their own jobs easier, and by the way, to bring down the price for the so-called good of the taxpayers.
Because again, if you can't negotiate with anybody but the Department of Transportation, how do you find out the real value of your home? What happens next in this story? Will the rule of law ultimately reign in North Carolina? We'll find out next after this break. This is our American Story. We recorded it at iHeartRadio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that NERTEC ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams, can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango? It's true! I had one that night, and I took my NERTEC ODT, and I was present and had an amazing time.
Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by NERTEC ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, NERTEC ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams, is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So, lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCMedicareHealthPlans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident.
See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in York Corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we continue with our American stories and the story of North Carolina's MAP Act that allowed the state to essentially freeze the improvement, development, or sale of private property. Let's return to one of the affected homeowners and landowners, Paula Smith.
We talked to the DOT and they said, oh, probably within two years, three years, we'll be out there and we'll be buying your house and you'll be on your way. So 2008, we got a new governor of North Carolina. And Ms. Perdue had her own agenda, as most governors do.
She had her own areas of the state that she favored, I should say. And the beltway around Winston-Salem went from being, I think we were like priority number four or five in the state to being priority number 25. There was another group of environmentalists called the Friends of Forsyth. And the Friends of Forsyth then filed a lawsuit against the highway being built because of some environmental issues. There was some creek that had some kind of creature in the creek that was going to be displaced and the creek was going to be altered. And so the environmentalists got involved. So that basically, from 2008 to 2010, the DOT was going, we can't do anything in the midst of this mess with the Friends of Forsyth. I think I even commented one time the Friends of Forsyth were no friends of ours because, you know, they were fighting against the highway being built.
I'm sitting here with a house we can't sell because the DOT has a map on us that says you're going to take our house, but we don't know when. It was just a mess. It was just a total mess. Thankfully, the lawsuit was dismissed in 2010. And around this time, Paula met Beverly Reynolds, whose family business had a property that couldn't be expanded or sold because of this MAP Act. And she said, well, let's have a meeting. Well, she got Steve Trogdon, who was the head of the DOT, happened to be in Winston-Salem that day. So somehow or other, she got him to come to our meeting. I went out and put flyers in mailboxes and said we're having a meeting at 7 o'clock on this date. Please be present. You'll find out what's going to happen.
So we had a good 65, 70 people at that meeting. Of course, that's when Steve Trogdon stood there in front of all of us in 2010 and said, I don't know when we're ever going to build your highway. I don't know when we're ever going to take your houses. But you're, you know, you're in the map and we're going to buy your houses, but we can't tell you when.
It could be 25 years from now before we buy your house. I think we all just kind of, our mouths just dropped open and went, you can't stand here and say that. I mean, you just cannot stand here and say something to these people that this is their lives.
This is their, you know, their land, their jobs. You can't just stand here and say that. He just, he just didn't care. I mean, I guess he was trying to be honest with us, but he just, he just seemed very cold about the whole thing. The B. Roth Oil Company said, go find us some other plaintiffs and turn this into a class action, which we met with owners. They had a big group meeting.
They, as you will hear, are as conversant as anybody on the face of the earth about the wrongs that the government can do when it thinks it's doing good for the public. And Paula Smith, who I think I may have heard her name before we showed up, within seconds when I said, does anybody want to do it? Boom, she's up at the front. We didn't hesitate. You know, again, I think I, after hearing the Mr. Trogdon guy, the head of the DOT, say it could be another 25 years, my husband and I looked at each other and said, this is not right. We have to do something. And Matthew, he wanted somebody to join the lawsuit.
And I believed in him. I'm not that kind of person that's going to sit around and do nothing. I sometimes get myself in trouble.
Sometimes I say things I shouldn't say sometimes because I just, you know, believe that you've got to stand up for yourself. Paula and Kenny were always the face of the litigation through the class action. So we said to everyone, the more people we get, the more weight it has. And I said, you know, you don't charge up a hill at the opponent with five people.
You send 500 people up the hill. By the time we started showing up at the appellate courts, we had 50 or 60 cases. Then the next time we visited, we had 70, 80 or 90, we had maybe 90 cases. Every time we showed up, we had more cases. And the Supreme Court and the judges and justices knew this. So, yes, the fact that this was statewide and on such a large scale and not just a little one-off in some little town someplace absolutely gave it gravity. I know I took my daughter.
This might have been the Court of Appeals hearing that we went to in Raleigh. She said, I want to go, too, and see what this is about. And she was just amazed. I mean, she's like, this is really, okay, I'm going to say this is really bad ass. Of course, she's a 20-something at that time. And she's like, this is really bad ass. I'm like, yes, this is.
I mean, it's kind of fun to watch. The courtrooms are packed. I mean, Matthew did a good job of getting people to go to the courtrooms and being in the courtrooms and letting the judge and the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court see that, you know, these are real people that are being affected here. These people sitting here in this room are the ones being affected. It always bothered me. I go to these meetings at the churches or I go to the meetings at the court hearings and you look around the room and the majority of people, I get a little teary-eyed talking about this.
You get in these rooms and these people that are in these rooms are all in probably mid-60s to late 60s to 70s to 80s. These are people that have lived in their homes their whole lives or their family farms and things like that that the DOT had no, they didn't care. They just had no compassion for these people whatsoever. And you hear that somebody passed away and then now their family, they couldn't finalize the estate because the DOT is holding on to their land and won't pay them out. And, you know, it's like, this is so sad what they were doing to people's lives.
And it was just wrong. I'm glad that we fought it. I was really happy to see that this case was ultimately brought up to the North Carolina Supreme Court and the MAP Act was overturned in 2019 after more than 30 years of people enduring the MAP Act. I know a person who wanted to retire in Florida was unable to sell their home and died in that home because they were stuck. The irony of the MAP Act is it was supposed to save taxpayers money by giving the state power to hold on to land until it needed to be developed and pay a lower price. But in fact, it is incredible in terms of how much this has backfired because homeowners have fought for their property rights. The property rights that are constitutionally guaranteed have sued the state and now are owed money that is many times multiple of their original home. And the lawsuits, according to one estimate, could cost the state over $1 billion. So this is an unfortunate road, so to speak, that the state took. Whatever they have saved, they are now having to pay for it.
You know, it has increased their anticipated acquisition costs in today's dollars two or threefold. The judge says these people are entitled to interest back to the date of the taking. So the date of the taking, I think, for us was 2008. I think it was 8 percent interest, which was a nice sum of money. And because they kept dragging this out in court, we got a lot more money for our house in 2019 than we would have gotten for our house in 2010.
But it's because they just kept dragging it out and dragging it out and dragging it out. In my own backyard, there are 3,000 people who have property rights that is very similar to a country I've been studying for 15 years, Zimbabwe. In fact, they have the worst property rights in the entire country.
And what I did was I said, well, let's pretend that this area outside of my city is a little country. Let's stack it up against a well-known property rights index put out by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., which has a very well-regarded property rights index. And what I did when I sort of put in here's what the power you have to sell your property, here's the power to upgrade your property, here's the power to go to the bank, I found out that, in fact, the people had property rights that were equal to living in some of the worst countries in the world. That would be places like Zimbabwe or Cuba.
That's why I named the title of one of my articles, Is This North Carolina or Zimbabwe? How Property Rights in North Carolina Deteriorated to the Level of a Third World Country. What we had learned is that your average Joe does not like lawyers, does not like the government, loves their property, and would rather be left alone.
At least as a road going through their living room. So we had to overcome their distrust of lawyers, and their distrust of the government, and their distrust of the court system. And they have all been rewarded with putting their faith in us, and that is a reward beyond the money we've made people. It's a professional reward that I gather most people don't get to have in their career, and it's been very gratifying. It's just been an ordeal from the beginning, and I guess that's why I got a little teary-eyed, because it's finally almost over. And it's like I can kind of let my emotions get the best of me now, because it's over. It is indeed over, and what voices we heard there, what a story about property rights. Great storytelling by Alex Cortez, as always. The rule of law, North Carolina's MAP Act, no longer. This is Our American Stories.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-16 19:15:37 / 2023-02-16 19:32:27 / 17
