Imagine being on the edge of your seat for some 20 years. It’s a long time to wait for anything, especially about whether you can keep doing business on your own property.

That’s what Karen Haug and her company, Advance Shoring, have endured since the early ’90s. That was when the port authority of St. Paul, Minnesota announced plans to grab the company’s property for somebody else’s private use.

Advance Shoring, founded by Haug’s father in 1960, has been fighting the grab ever since.

The port authority has now officially abandoned its plan, agreeing to seek to acquire the property only by voluntary means. Haug says: “I’m breathing a sigh of relief for our business and employees. . . . Now we can return to running our business.”

As so often in battles to protect innocent Americans against eminent domain abuse, some credit must go to the Institute for Justice. In publicly heralding the port authority’s decision, Lee McGrath, of IJ’s Minnesota chapter, urged city officials to recognize that “the port authority’s past uses of eminent domain are now illegal under Minnesota’s 2006 reforms,” and to strip the port authority of its power to condemn properties.

The port authority, for its part, seems annoyed that there’s been publicity about its defeat. They say they’d been hoping to keep the matter quiet.

Poor fellows. I weep for them; crocodiles have such tears.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

If the government isn’t trying to take something from you, it’s trying to push something on you. Or both.

Marion Smith is a 79-year-old widow living in Brooklyn. Ecologically pious bureaucrats are trying to stick her with a tree she doesn’t want. A friend, Nancy Cardozo, reports that they were even threatened with arrest for daring to object to the project.

Marion is disabled, and cannot rake leaves. Six years ago, a tree that had been in the same spot died, not long after her husband died. Years later, the city removed the stump, and a city worker assured Marion that no new tree would be planted there. So she paved the area.

The city worker who now came to plant a new tree proved inert to any appeals. “Sorry, I have the contract and I have a big payroll,” he told Marion and a neighbor trying to help her out. He had to put the tree there.

The city insists that it has a right to put the tree anywhere it wants on the sidewalk, since it owns the sidewalk. The city also says that if anybody slips on the leaves in front of Marion’s home, she as homeowner will be liable.

Maybe somebody could plant an idea about common sense and common decency in the minds of all concerned?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Does cinematic celebrity protect a person against arbitrary governmental stomping, or bulldozing, of one’s human rights to property?

Maybe it does if you live in Beverly Hills. But the answer’s a big No if you dwell in a Mumbai slum targeted by a government touting a sanctimonious “cleanup” agenda. Why? Because callously uprooting lives is part of the allegedly “acceptable” cost of that “cleanup.”

Mumbai officials have destroyed yet another shanty home of a child who starred in the popular and multiple-Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” The victims are the family of Rubina Ali, who played Latika in the film. Rubina says, “I’m feeling bad. I’m thinking about where to sleep.”

Her family had not even been given any notice when cops swooped in to supervise the demolition. The week before, the home of Azhar Mohammed Ismail, who played Jamal as a child in the movie, had also been flattened. Rubina and Azhar lived in the same part of Mumbai.

One would think that fame might have helped these kids catch a break from functionaries eager to forcibly reorder the world no matter what damage is done to innocent victims in the process; perhaps they might be sensitive to the bad publicity. No such luck.

Not that whether your rights are respected should have anything to do with whether you’re a movie star. Being a human being should be enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

In Portland, Oregon, the difference between Constitutional takings and just plain theft by government can be seen in bright neon.

The “Made In Oregon” sign on what used to be called the Bickel Building, on Burnside Street, is something of a landmark. It’s huge. It used to say “White Stag Sportswear.” It still features a white stag atop the sign. To much hullabaloo, every Christmas season the white stag’s nose gets lit, red.

Over the years, the sign’s ownership has changed. Now there are political rumblings to condemn the sign and make it public property, so to “control its message.” That’s city councilor Randy Leonard’s notion. Mayor Sam Adams (certainly not my favorite Sam Adams) and Commissioner Nick Fish have batted around the idea to buy the sign.

Jeff Alan, of the Cascade Policy Institute, makes the obvious point: If the city has a half million dollars to buy the sign, why not spend that money on real needs — like road repair or something — rather than on a neon sign?

How different were things back in 1925, when a portion of the Bickel Building, upon which the sign stands, was condemned to make room for the Burnside Bridge.

That displayed a commonsensical notion of public use.

Buying — or, worse, forcing the sale of — a sign to signal an official message? That’s Orwellian . . . if it even makes that much sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Columbia University officials may care about advancing human knowledge, and about nurturing young people. Their moral sensibilities may be highly refined when it comes to academic pursuits. But such virtues apparently do not prevent these guardians of learning from acting like thugs when thuggery seems convenient.

Columbia wants to expand into an area of Harlem called Manhattanville and is willing to abuse the state’s eminent domain power to do so. Who cares about morality and rights, or the foiled lives and livelihoods of innocent people, when there’s property to be nabbed, right?

It’s quite a scam, actually. Columbia has acquired many buildings in the neighborhood, but is not maintaining them. Because of Columbia’s own run-down buildings, the state has formally declared the neighborhood to be “blighted.” If the entire area is now condemned, full ownership can be transferred to Columbia. Which will clean things up immediately.

Meanwhile, Nick Sprayregen, the owner of several well-kept buildings in Manhattanville, is having trouble renting out units of his self-storage business because of the specter of Columbia’s eminent-domain grab. Plus, the firm that New York State used to determine whether the land is blighted had also been employed by Columbia itself — to advocate government approval of its expansion and possible use of eminent domain.

In short, we have only a perverse pretense of due process here. Columbia flunks Ethics 101 but gets an A in con artistry.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.