In Cincinnati v. Vester (1930) 281 U.S. 439, the city proposed to take the petitioners' property as an adjunct to and in furtherance of, a widening of one of its main streets. (Vester, supra, 281 U.S. at p. 441.) An Ohio eminent domain statute required the condemning authority to pass a resolution "defining the purpose of the appropriation" (Vester, at p. 442), a provision very similar to section 1245.230, which requires a "statement of the public use" for which the property is to be taken ( 1245.230, subd. (a)). The Cincinnati resolution described the purpose of the taking "in the most general terms," i.e., " 'in furtherance of the said widening of Fifth Street' and 'necessary for the complete enjoyment and preservation of said public use.' " (Vester, supra, 281 U.S. at p. 443.) The property owners in Vester objected on the ground that the city's true intent in condemning the property was to resell their property to private developers. The lower courts sided with the property owners. (Id. at pp. 443-445 74 L.Ed. at pp. 953-954.) Trying to put a favorable gloss on the vague, general language of its resolution, the city in Vester cited a number of public uses to which the property could be put, to which the court retorted: "We are ... either to assume that whatever the city, entirely uncontrolled by any specific statement of its purpose, may decide to do with the properties appropriated, will be valid under both the state and federal Constitutions, or to set up some hypothesis as to use and decide for or against the taking accordingly, although the assumption may be found to be foreign to the actual purpose of the appropriation ... ." (Vester, supra, 281 U.S. at p. 446.) The Supreme Court in Vester refused to engage in either contortion of logic, stating: "The general declaration of the resolution of the City Council ... is plainly not a definition. To define is to limit, and that which is left unlimited, and is to be determined only by such future action as the city may hereafter decide upon, is not defined. The city's contention is so broad that it defeats itself. It is not enough that property may be devoted hereafter to a public use for which there could have been an appropriate condemnation. Under the guise of an excess condemnation pursuant to the authority of the constitutional provision of Ohio, private property could not be taken for some independent and undisclosed public use. Either no definition of purpose is required in the case of excess condemnation, a view of the statute which cannot be entertained, or the purpose of the excess condemnation must be suitably defined. In this view, in the absence of such a definition, the appropriation must fail by reason of non-compliance with statutory authority." (Vester, supra, 281 U.S. at p. 448.)