A Wednesday Minnesota Supreme Court opinion, this link.
In Ramsey, the ability to assess at "redevelopment" potential could cut against the Hunt family's having gotten Comp Plan provisions favoring the redeveopment potential of their properties; as well as against a large acreage property on Sunfish Lake where redevelopment potential soundings have already been made with the City. How far such an opinion could be argued in the assessor reaching to up valuations to increase tax income flows while the politicians toot about not raising assessment rates is an uncertainty, and something that can be used to do great mischief.
The other edge, by example a person in the situation of council member Wise, with a store site that will be taken in the course of the Armstrong realignment. Should he and family and their lawyers not find a negotiated offer-acceptance meeting their hopes, they can contend a higher and better redevelopment use exists beyond the present retail outlet and its value, and seek to win on that if litigation ensues.
The Berry & Co. case is a ticking time bomb, unless subsequent opinion narrows it and defuses the worse of its implications. Right now, it arguably is a blank check for assessor abuse.
_____________UPDATE_____________
The recent decision that got press attention was not the far-reaching tax opinion, but the one touching upon standards of circumstantial proof of a crime in the context of a lurid murder; see reporting here and the opinion here.
Consider white collar crime, for instance the bribery statute concerning a public official, Minn. Stat. Sect. 609.42, subd. 2, making it the crime of bribery for one "being a public officer or employee, requests, receives or agrees to receive, directly or indirectly, any such benefit, reward or consideration [per subd. 1] upon the understanding that it will have such an influence." That "upon the understnding" is tough language, unless the circumstantial evidence is somebody wearing a wire, and handing a politician a brown paper bag full of bills and saying, "Here's the bribe money for your arranging that grant financing," or whatever public action delivered for a bribe might be involved. It's hard to prove. Not like a murder with blood many places, cell phone calls, hammers hidden around a property, etc., as in Hawes.
