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-News Articles/Editorials/Letters to the Editor-
11/20/2002
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The next stage of work on the Carson City freeway has been stalled by the failure to acquire 82 acres needed for the project, a state transportation spokesman said Tuesday. Bid specifications for the next phase of work, which would have completed the northern half of the highway, were to go out in December, with construction to start in the spring. Now officials don’t have an estimate of when work will continue. “The project is on hold,” said Scott Magruder, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation. The property, part of the Lompa family’s 430-acre ranch, is the biggest remaining piece of land needed along the route of the nine-mile freeway that will bypass Carson Street, the city’s congested thoroughfare. NDOT in July offered the Lompa family $2.8 million to buy 62 acres and hold a permanent easement on 20 acres. The family rejected the offer. The Nevada State Transportation Board in September filed an eminent domain lawsuit to acquire 82 acres from the family to make way for the capital city’s freeway. At that time, state officials said there might be a delay, depending on the duration of the condemnation process. Although the state has filed a condemnation lawsuit against the family, both of Carson City’s district court judges have disqualified themselves from the case because of longtime friendships with the Lompas. Both sides are waiting for the Nevada Supreme Court to assign a new judge to the case, a lawyer for the Lompas said. Laura FitzSimmons, the lawyer, said the state is using the Lompa family as an excuse for stopping the work when it’s more likely that the state can’t afford to go forward with the project at this time. “They’re going to tell you they can’t do anything because of the Lompa case,” FitzSimmons said Tuesday. The board’s action in September did not include “right of entry,” which could allow the state to go on the Lompas’ property and begin construction before a judge has assigned the price the state must pay. FitzSimmons said the reason the state hasn’t done that is so it can blame the delay on the Lompas. “They’re making the Lompas look like they’re hanging up the freeway,” FitzSimmons said. Magruder, however, said the $106 million earmarked for the next phase of work won’t be affected by the delay. The project, dubbed Phase 1B, would complete the freeway from U.S. 395 at the bottom of Lakeview Hill in northern Carson City to U.S. 50 East near Lompa Lane. The freeway’s final phase, from U.S. 50 East to the U.S. 50 West turnoff at the southern end of town, will bisect the Lompa’s ranch. Construction on that $160 million portion isn’t scheduled to begin for years, and likely won’t be finished until about 2010. But while the Lompa ranch is on the Phase 2 side of U.S. 50, the land acquisition still is necessary now to build storm-water retention facilities for the first half. Construction crews early this year finished work on the $14 million Phase 1A to construct four bridges on the northern 3.8-mile segment. Mayor Ray Masayko said he was disappointed but not surprised by the delay. “My concern is no physical work has been done, at least not enough to count, in the calendar year 2002. I would hate to see another year pass without any work,” Masayko said. Eva Lompa, 87, and her son Sam and his family live on the ranch, where they raise cattle and sheep. |
