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Tuesday, February 15, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Fix an injustice
City should pay the Pappas family.
During his election campaign, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman distanced himself from the way the previous administration had run rough- shod over the property rights of law-abiding, tax-paying property owners.
Mr. Goodman said he opposed the city's practice of using eminent domain to seize private property and turn it over to other private, third parties, under the guise of "public use." To this day, the mayor contends that is his position.
Yet in what is almost certainly the greatest ongoing injustice of its kind in Nevada (if not the nation) Carol Pappas, now 71, has never received a penny in compensation for her downtown property -- or any of the $60,000 per year in rents she formerly collected from the small shopkeepers who operated stores there.
In early 1994, the city of Las Vegas decided to seize and bulldoze the half-block of small retail businesses at Carson Street and Las Vegas Boulevard. Then the city built a parking garage on the site, promptly turning title of the land and new building over to the Fremont Street Limited Liability Corp., a private corporation made up of the eight largest downtown casino owners.
The city's idea of compensation was to arrive at a modest sum based on the land's taxable valuation, and put it in a bank account for Mrs. Pappas. But if Mrs. Pappas or her family touched a single penny, even to hire a lawyer, they would be waiving their right to fight the property seizure, or even to negotiate the amount to be paid.
Every other downtown landowner -- including even former U.S. Sen. Chic Hecht -- caved in to this extortionate method, since otherwise they feared they would face years of foot-dragging through the courts, all at their own expense.
But Carol Pappas bravely decided to fight city hall.
District Court Judge Don Chairez ruled for the Pappas family in 1996. The city Redevelopment Agency had violated its own rules -- as well as the law and the Constitution -- in seizing the property, he found. The law requires the Redevelopment Agency to allow land owners to "participate" in redevelopment, through ground leases if nothing else. Yet Mrs. Pappas was never given any such opportunity. The city never proved the area was blighted (a requirement for seizure); it never proved the casino owners couldn't afford to buy the land for themselves; and it certainly never demonstrated that a privately owned parking garage (which to this day sits more than half empty) constitutes a vital "public use."
The city immediately appealed Judge Chairez's ruling to the state Supreme Court. Last week, after three-and-a-half years of maneuvering, briefs were finally filed there -- along with a city filing of more than 5,000 pages of accompanying documents.
Mayor Goodman says he has no choice but to allow this slow dance of obstruction to continue, because the city's attorneys -- doubtless already paid more than $1 million, with more to come -- tell him he has to.
The issue here is much larger than one elderly taxpayer forced to stand by and watch her late husband's legacy bulldozed, of course. If government can get away with this, who is safe from having his property seized and turned over to a politically well-connected neighbor who simply doesn't want to pay the asking price?
This has gone on long enough. The multiple law firms retained by the city (some from as far away as Sacramento) to perpetuate this blatant injustice have been paid enough. Mayor Goodman should drop the city's appeal. He should personally contact the Pappas family and ask what it would take to make them whole.
If the mayor does not settle this case quickly and personally, however, then the state Supreme Court should do what's right. Judge Don Chairez's decision was a model of rectitude, close reasoning, and rigorous legal research. In an expedited finding, the state Supreme Court should uphold that ruling in favor of the Pappas family.
Fast.
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