The Village of North Hills has taken preliminary steps to seize a prestigious private golf course and turn it into public links, but the owners are already moving to block the potential takeover.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court, the owners of the Deepdale Golf Club and a group of citizens contend that taking the 18-hole course under eminent domain would violate the Fifth Amendment. The suit argues that seizing land for use as a public golf course goes against the intent of eminent domain law.

The lawsuit seeks to block any future condemnation of the golf club, ranked by Golf Digest as the 19th best in the state from 1995 to 1998.

In another suit filed yesterday in State Supreme Court in Mineola, a retired stockbroker charges that in an effort to raise funds to buy the golf course, the village accepted millions of dollars in fees from a condominium developer in exchange for permission to build on land that state officials say is environmentally sensitive.

George Conway, the attorney for Deepdale, said that, unlike a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that granted the City of New London, Conn., the right to demolish homes to revitalize a depressed area, taking a private golf course goes against the intent of condemnation law.

North Hills just wants "to create a luxury amenity for residents because it will increase property values," Conway said.

North Hills Mayor Marvin Natiss said the village has not yet decided to pursue the condemnation, but instead it is only gathering information, including appraisals and environmental impact statements, so it can make an informed decision.

Natiss said condemning Deepdale would be lawful: "I consider a village golf course and recreational facility for residents a public use.

"But we will not move forward without determining that it won't financially burden the village or impose hardships on its residents," he said.

It seems to me that the village will have a hard time making the case that a top-rated golf course is in need of revitalization and it's not like the village is planning on using the land for a legitimate public use. They are simply lusting after someone else's golf course: They want to make it their own.

Natiss quite obviously sees eminent domain as a convenient way to steal private property and is forging ahead emboldened, as literally hundreds of other power mad local bureaucrats are, by the U.S. Supreme Court's idiotic Kelo decision which handed the city of New London, Connecticut a bunch of lower middle class folks' homes on a silver platter. If the Supreme Court gives the okay to seize a bunch of hard-working middle class folks' homes under the guise of "public purpose", why not a golf course? Such is the confusion, unfairness and outright tyranny wrought by a bunch of leftists in black robes who have arbitrarily decided to turn the concept of "public use" on its head. Thanks Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, Kennedy and Breyer.