Help Save Our Home and Stop Piscataway Corruption and Eminent Domain Abuse!

My 14 year old sister and I have watched our family, including our dad who is a 100% disabled veteran & our mom who struggles with rheumatoid arthritis, fight a corrupt system for over 10 years. Mayor Wahler of Piscataway continuously utilized taxpayer funds to launch a full scale attack on our family and a rental property we own directly across the street from the Rutgers football stadium situated in Johnson Park. The mayor and town have tried to cause undue financial hardship through countless attorney interactions and court appearances as well as fraudulent claims and violations which had no merit all in an attempt to devalue our property.

The township claims the house is needed to provide a sanitary sewer line for the Rutgers football stadium more than 1,000 feet away yet has FAILED to ever produce any engineering studies or any documentation from Rutgers or Middlesex County Municipal Authority to justify the public purpose to take the home. Piscataway Township is known for land banking property with no public purpose other than wanting to take and control properties as they see fit all at taxpayer expense. This is eminent domain abuse at its finest.

Piscataway has taken away countless homes claiming eminent domain at taxpayer expense from numerous families and elderly who are incapable of fighting back. Although we are trying to save our home and college fund that this home was there to provide for us, we feel we need to be the voice for the bigger issue at stake which is the abuse of power of Mayor Wahler and Piscataway Township. You may remember the Halper case in Piscataway which is still unresolved 20 years later where the town kicked the family off their land, land that to this day sits in a tarnished way showing no signs of ever becoming the park the town and mayor claimed it was to be.

Our home at 1126 River Road in Piscataway was purchased to fund our college education while provided a nice home to Rutgers graduates, PhD's, and post-docs while away from their home or country. Being one of only a few homes where you can walk across the street to Busch Campus and a campus bus, this unique home provided a quiet and peaceful setting and environment for many students of different races and nationalities in the 15 years our family rented it in full compliance of all codes despite the town stating that they do not want college students in any Piscataway home. Yes, Rutgers students, they don't want you in any Piscataway house which is ridiculous!

On Wednesday, July 21st at 2p.m. our family was thrown a loop with our family attorneys being notified that Piscataway Township intended to demo the property on Monday, July 26th. Our family is still appealing the taking and to rush to demo this house while matters are still in court makes no sense. 

They illegally locked us out of our home in September 2020 without notice and with many multi-generational possessions in storage in both the detached two story garage and home. No landlord could ever do this to a tenant, yet the town did this as another attempt to harass our family. On Saturday, July 24th, they brought 2 trucks to move all the possessions to an undisclosed location.

Will you help us and the many other countless residents who are at risk of losing their home whenever the town wants something or it fits their agenda? This time it is our family, could you be next? Please help us stop eminent domain abuse not only in Piscataway, but elsewhere. You can't just take someone's property because you want it. There needs to be a valid public purpose for which there is none!

Thank you!

Drew (17) and Heather (14) Paglia

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