Las Vegas Homes and Real Estate News
Boulder City mayor floats land sale to fund bypassFeb. 03, 2006Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By HENRY BREAN REVIEW-JOURNAL At the moment, Boulder City doesn't have $350 million to pay for a new highway bypass skirting the community between Las Vegas and Hoover Dam. What the city does have is plenty of vacant property. In a surprise move Wednesday, Mayor Bob Ferraro linked the two things when he suggested a massive land sale as one possible way to fund the 13.5-mile bypass project. Specifically, Ferraro suggested the city consider selling some of the 1,500 acres it owns in a northwestern section of the Eldorado Valley known as Dutchman's Pass. Proceeds from the sale could then be used to expedite work on the bypass, he said. "Rather than waiting for 20 years for the federal government to come up with the money, I thought maybe we could find the money ourselves locally," Ferraro said. Without the bypass, traffic crossing the new Colorado River bridge being built just downstream from Hoover Dam will be funneled right through the middle of Boulder City. "That's going to be horrendous," Ferraro said. The $234 million bridge on U.S. Highway 93 is slated for completion in 2008. The bypass to route traffic from the bridge around Boulder City has yet to be designed or funded. Ferraro floated the land sale idea at the end of his State of the City address, a decision he said he made "in the last minutes of the last hour." "I just tossed it out to see what the community might think about it," Ferraro said. "What it was meant to do, and what it is certainly doing, is get people to react." By noon Thursday, the mayor said he already had received "50 or so calls" about his proposal. A majority of the callers expressed concern about the idea, he said. Others were more emphatic. Sherman Rattner, who has made a name for himself in Boulder City as an outspoken critic on a wide range of issues, savaged the idea in a press release he sent out within two hours of the mayor's speech. In the release, Rattner argued that the bypass would mostly benefit developers in Las Vegas and Arizona, while the land sale would open Eldorado Valley to the kind of growth Boulder City has long fought to prevent. He compared the mayor's proposal to "selling the family jewels to buy a gun to blow out your own brains." Ferraro laughed when he heard that. " Sherman has his ideas and his opinions. I just listen carefully (to what he has to say) and we go forward from there," he said. Among those who support selling land to help fund the bypass is long-time Boulder City resident and insurance agent Doug Scheppmann. He said he suggested that idea to Rep. Jon Porter two weeks ago, when the congressman spoke at a Rotary Club meeting in Boulder City. "I think it's a viable option," Scheppmann said. "I think it would be a huge mistake if we don't take a more aggressive stance on getting the road built. Who wants all that truck traffic through our community?" Scheppmann gave a less favorable review to the other bypass idea Ferraro suggested Wednesday night: turning the 13.5-mile route into a tollway. "I'm not in favor of the toll road idea at all," Scheppmann said. At present, Nevada has no toll roads. Ferraro did not specify how much land the city should consider selling, but he said he thought the sale of "some of the Dutchman's Pass property" would bring in enough to fund the highway project. In 2004, Boulder City Councilman Mike Pacini drew some criticism in the community when he suggested a similar land sale to pay off all the city's bond debt and fund a wish list of future projects. At the time, he guessed the city could fetch $200 million for all 1,500 acres in Dutchman's Pass. Ferraro said he has no plans to follow up Wednesday's suggestion with any official action. Ultimately, he said, it won't be up to him anyway. The city can't sell so much as an acre of land without voter approval. "The community is going to have to decide what it wants to do," Ferraro said. |
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