Although it is being sold to voters as eminent domain reform to protect homes from potential condemnation, Proposition 90 is a "Trojan Horse" initiative: it has hidden, far-reaching implications that represent the most significant statewide threat to our historic preservation protections in many years.

Programs at high risk include:

- The creation of historic districts (such as Los Angeles' 22 Historic Preservation Overlay Zones, or HPOZs)
- The designation of local landmarks (Historic-Cultural Monuments)
- Basic planning and zoning protections that help safeguard our historic properties and historic communities throughout California

Why is Prop. 90 so dangerous? It would mandate government payouts to property owners throughout California any time a social or environmental measure allegedly "harms" their property. Prop. 90 would allow virtually anyone to sue local governments, claiming that a new law or regulation may have negatively affected the value of their property or business.

It's been a landmark in Southwest Baltimore for fifty years, but a few days ago the State Diner closed its doors. Customers can't believe they've lost a place they call a good friend.

General Manager Sheila Dorsey tells WJZ'S Ron Matz that the owner is retiring.

"I've met some characters here I will never forget...We've loved every minute of it...We've seen children grow up, we've known a lot of people and we are sorely going to miss them." she said.

In the final days Diner Owner Andre Passas attached a goodbye note to the menus. He thanked his many customers and said it was the end of an era.

The owners say they plan to open another business nearby and will lease the five acres of land on Wilkens Ave. where the diner is located.

With all of Liberty's businesses and properties to choose from, why did the Town and Village of Liberty choose the Munson Diner as one of the projects they submitted for a revitalization grant program?

That's what Clarence Barber, the former town highway superintendent and a current Democratic candidate for Town Board, wants to know. So do some other Liberty residents.

"This grant was set up to help businesses," Barber said. "I don't think what they did was one bit legal. I think it's a conflict of interest."

Barber's rival, Republican Gary Siegel, is one of 15 local investors who brought the Munson Diner to Liberty from New York City's Hell's Kitchen in May 2005.

"There has not been any back-door politics going on over the Munson Diner," Siegel said, just misunderstandings about the Restore NY program. "People just need the facts."

"The property was chosen in the same way that all the other ones were chosen," said Heinrich Strauch, executive director of the Liberty Community Development Corp. "We looked at empty buildings along the Main Street corridor, because Main Street revitalization is one of our main focuses."

There were no grand announcements, no advertising campaigns, and yet Brian and Kim Kniskern could see the heads turn in each passing car, people with smiles as big as the Kniskerns’ own.

“We sat there, looking out the windows, and everybody’s head is just turning,” said Mrs. Kniskern, who is Brian’s stepmother.

“They were happier than us,” Brian Kniskern added.

Heads are drawn to the simple sign on Southbridge Street that states “We Made It!” and that the Miss Worcester Diner is “Now Open.”

“Everybody just kept coming in once they saw we were open,” Mr. Kniskern said. “The open sign alone did it for us.”

Pasadena, CA
Ema Shuton knows the wants of each of her counter-rats, as she affectionately calls them.

After nearly 20 years tending the counter at Shakers diner, Shuton admitted Friday she might know too much about some of her customers, and fought back emotion knowing their shared mornings were at an end.

"Side of fruit, side of turkey patty, Diet Coke. And salsa," she said of Peter, one of her regulars. "He is suing everyone, including Mercedes-Benz and the government."

Sunday is Shakers' last day at the corner of Arroyo Parkway and Cordova Avenue.

For regular diners like Catherine Morgan (waffle, sausage over-medium) and Dale Woodward (waffle soft, bacon rare), the restaurant's closing is another sign of the changing face of Pasadena.

"Decent food, great prices," Woodward said. "People have grown from childhood to getting married, all because of one restaurant."

Middletown, RI
For 60 years, O’Rourke’s Diner has been this city’s heart and soul, one f its most famed and far-reaching icons and one f the best things ever to happen to its communa

But in the month since an early-morning fire scorched the diner, which was uninsured, even some of its most ardent boosters have been surprised by the passionate outpouring of support from the community for a rebuilding effort.

Even some who know the diner and its community-minded owner, Brian O’Rourke, best have been amazed.

"Everybody feels as if they lost something ... and everybody feels as if Brian has always been giving to everybody," said Jane McMillan, O’Rourke’s good friend and lawyer.

If you don’t know O’Rourke’s or haven’t spent much time in Middletown, try to imagine how New Haven might react to a major fire gutting Louis’ Lunch or pizza icons Sally’s or Pepe’s.

Walk through the door of the Culinary Archives & Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence and you won't know which way to turn first. Toward the exhibit on diners, which beckons with a life-size facade and brightly-lit neon signs, or to the whimsical sculptures assembled from thousands of kitchen gadgets and utensils?

Perhaps your first stop will be the exhibit dedicated to chefs, detailing the history of the chef from servant to celebrity, or maybe the extensive display of stoves, from the open hearths of Colonial times to the microwave and today's modern wonders.

Or maybe it's the collection of presidential china and menus, or the preserved wedding cakes, or the display of sterling silver that will call out to you “come see me first.”

Regardless of where you start your tour, make sure you leave plenty of time to see everything when you visit the Culinary Archives & Museum's vast collection of cookware, cooking memorabilia, and everything food-related.

Located on the Johnson & Wales campus, the museum boasts 25,000-square-feet of exhibition space. It is an educational resource for the university, the community at large, food scholars and the food service industry, and ordinary people who are just interested in food.

Waldoboro, ME Waldoboro's hot dog lady, Barbara Kane, has retired her lunch wagon after 28 years on Jefferson St. Although the weathered red, white and blue wagon still sits in its place across from the Bear Hill Hardware, gone is a friendly face, and the tantalizing smell of fried onions, hotdogs and hand cut french fries.

Over the years Kane and her husband Robert served truck drivers, clam diggers, school kids and Osram-Sylvania employees. When her husband died 15 years ago, Kane carried on the business by herself. Although she walks with a touch of arthritis, she remains cheerful and spunky.

"Of course, the clam diggers, they supported me from day one," said Kane. When someone once told a clam digger they should watch their language in front of her she replied, "Donít worry. Iíve heard it all before and it doesn't bother me a bit."

Hoopeston, IL
The "closed" sign went up a few weeks ago on the flashy neon marquee outside the Lorraine Theatre, but the 84-year-old movie palace on Main Street hasn't played its last picture show. Business isn't bad. It's the movies that are wretched.

"Both theaters in Hoopeston are closed ... because of such poor film choices available," explains a recording on the Lorraine's customer hot line. "Go to Danville to see `Jackass 2.'"

Car dealers wouldn't tell buyers to take a hike until better models came out. No chef worth his ladle would shoo paying diners off to the competition because his kitchen is in a slump. Yet that's essentially what Lorraine owner Greg Boardman did this month.

He put his two screens here on hiatus rather than sell tickets to the gross-out and freak-out fare he said Hollywood distributors have made available in recent weeks. Boardman said he'd rather show nothing than such recent offerings as "Beerfest," "The Covenant" or the "Jackass" sequel, which topped the nation's box office last week despite getting savagely panned by critics. A Tribune review labeled it "an insult to sophomoric movies everywhere."