Don Chairez for District Attorney

July 4th, 1996, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Judge: City wrongly took land.

The agency redeveloping downtown Las Vegas will appeal a court ruling that it seized property unlawfully.

By Card Geer

The city’s redevelopment agency suffered another defeat Wednesday when a District Court judge ruled it had unlawfully taken property from a long time Las Vegas family.

“The record reveals an agency that is, at best, insensitive and, at worst, insincere in the way that it has at tempted to fulfill its mission,” Judge Don Chairez wrote in his decision. The history of the agency is a trail of mistakes, missteps and misstatements.”

The Las Vegas Downtown Redevelopment Agency took property from the Pappas family in late 1993 for construction of the Fremont Street Experience parking garage.

The Pappas family owned the property — 7,000 square feet at the north west corner of Carson Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard — for more than 40 years before the agency invoked its eminent domain powers.

“We are very happy and thankful to Judge Chairez,” Carol Pappas said Wednesday. She is majority owner of the property. Chairez acknowledged the Nevada Supreme Court ultimately will decide issue.

Within the last year the redevelopment agency has appealed three eminent domain losses to the state’s high court, two involving the Stratosphere Tower and one involving the Fremont Street Experience.

The agency’s lawyers said Wednesday they also will appeal the ruling in the Pappas case.

"There is no doubt we are going to appeal,” attorney Daniel Polsen berg said. a fact, the judge even seems to invite it.”

Polsenlurg said sympathy may lie with the Pappas family, but “eminent domain is a lot more complicated than that, and redevelopment is even more complicated.”

“Any one of us could identify with an individual wanting to keep her land, but if an area of town is spiraling further into depression, only the city can come in and save it, so there’s real public interest here in having redevelopment,’ he said.

Chairez stayed his ruling until Aug. 5, when the parties will return to court - The agency’s attorneys have asked for a stay pending a resolution of their appeal, but the Pappas family’s attorneys want the judge to attach certain conditions.

“I think we’ll win ultimately, and we’ll end up having to pay her anyway,” Polsenberg said. “She has no losing position here’ He said some of the criticisms in Chairez’s ruling “were legally irrelevant, and therefore it’s easy to see where somebody could take the family’s side on an emotional basis rather than based on the law and the Constitution.”

Elko attorney Grant Gerber, who represents the Pappas family, gave Carol Pappas credit for sticking with the fight to regain her property.

“She didn’t stop. She didn’t cave in” he said. “It’s so refreshing for attorneys like us to have a client who has the courage and faiith to proceed.”

Gerber said the judge made the only decision possible under Nevada law and under the state and federal constitutions.

A neighboring property owner, Ida Ray, is also trying to recover ‘her condemned property. Ray, who owned 8,125 square feet on Fremont Street, sat in court Wednesday and smiled broadly after hearing the judge’s decision.

Gerber said Pappas is a native of Greece, and Ray is a native of France.

“They lived through those terrible troubles of World War II” he said. “They moved here and bought land and intend to keep that land.”