More proof that what's you thought was yours really isn't yours after all:

Sound Transit will pay $500,000 to acquire property for a rail station, a jury decides. That's more than the agency originally offered but less than the owners demanded. A Pierce County jury told a Tacoma couple Thursday that their property, which was seized by Sound Transit for a commuter rail station, was worth $500,000. That was far less than Ken and Barbara Miller have been seeking but more than the $439,000 Sound Transit offered them in 2004.

In the recent court case, Sound Transit had argued it was worth $480,000, spokesman Geoff Patrick said. Ken Miller said they were given an offer of $566,000 a month before the trial started.

The agency had an obligation to the Millers to pay a fair price and to the taxpayers not to pay too much, Patrick said.

"The Millers asserted a value for the property that was 300 to 400 percent of what a jury unanimously concluded after a short deliberation," he said.

The Millers don't see it that way.

"So much for property rights!!!!!!!," a Thursday e-mail from them began. They called their ordeal a "never ending tale of woe."

That $500,000 won't even cover the couple's legal costs, the e-mail said.

"We lose our land to Sound Transit and will in essence received nothing in return," they wrote.

In a phone call Thursday night, Ken Miller said, "We'll both be 70 years old this coming year. We're too old to be doing this sort of thing."

Since when does the government actually care about the burden on its taxpayers? This poor couple shouldn't have to be dealing with this mess. The situation goes to show that your property ultimately isn't yours--it belongs to the county, and they don't give a care if you lose everything for the sake of their un-Sound Transit system.

Ugh.

-Cydney

Cross-posted on The Celebrity.