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PUBLIC HEARINGS 3 IN RE: DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT AND DRAFT 4 SECTION 4 (F) STATEMENT 5 SOUTH AND EAST BELTWAYS, LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 6 PROJE CT NO. DPU-3300(1) 7 8 9 10 11 12 Hearings held April 23 and 24, 2001, at the Lincoln Berean Church, 6400 S. 70th Street, 13 Hearing Room 2, Lincoln, Nebraska 14 15 16 A P P E A R A N C E S 17 HEARING OFFICER: MR. PAUL H. LADEHOFF, J.D. Program Coordinator 18 The Mediation Center 1120 K Street, Suite 200 19 Lincoln, NE 68508 20 WITNESS: MS. JOAN HILL 10455 Pioneers Boulevard 21 Lincoln, NE 22 23 24 25 J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475 - DEPO 1 (At 2:30 p.m. on April 23, 2001, with 2 Hearing Officer Ladehoff, Witness Joan Till and 3 the court reporter being present, the following 4 testimony was given:) 5 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: We are here 6 to receive your comments and thoughts on the Draft 7 Environmental Impact Statement regarding the 8 Beltways. 9 JOAN TILL: Right. 10 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: And you have 11 a couple of options on how you can offer, you 12 know, your thoughts, your concerns: Oral, and we 13 are here today to do that. And anything that you 14 would say will be taken down as demonstrated here. 15 You can also submit written testimony, 16 and you can do both. 17 JOAN TILL: Okay. 18 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: So if you 19 give testimony here today, you don't foreclose 20 giving written testimony. 21 JOAN TILL: So if I get home and I 22 forgot -- 23 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: So you've got 24 until May 14 to offer written testimony. And if 25 you pick up one of these white sheets - - and I see J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 that you've got one. 2 JOAN TILL: I've got two. 3 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: - - that's got 4 the address where you need to send them by the 5 14th. 6 I want to know that the oral and 7 written testimony receive equal weight in the 8 consideration, so if you forget something that you 9 wanted to say today and then submit it by written 10 testimony, it will receive the same consideration. 11 JOAN TILL: And who is going to hear 12 this? 13 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: This is being 14 recorded for use with the South and East Beltway 15 study team. 16 JOAN TILL: So HWS? 17 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: Yes, HWS. 18 JOAN TILL: This is not going to go to 19 the City/County officials? 20 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: No, this will 21 go - - what we are doing here, your comments will 22 then be used to revise the Draft Environmental 23 Impact Statement and come up with the final 24 report, and every - - all the comments we hear will 25 be addressed. J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 JOAN TILL: I was just talking to Mike 2 Gorman upstairs and he told me to come down here. 3 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: Oh, sure, 4 because that feeds into the process, because once 5 the report then is final, then in June there will 6 be a couple of hearings in front of the 7 City/County Planning Commission and the County 8 Board and the City Council. The Planning 9 Commission will be the first, and that will also 10 be a chance, then, for folks to come in and offer 11 testimony, offer also their comments at that time. 12 JOAN TILL: Okay. Okay. 13 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: Now, this 14 will go to HWS for purpose of, you know, exacting 15 and revising - - possibly revising the 16 environmental impact statement, but won't - - I'm 17 not sure if it will go to the city and county 18 decision-makers. 19 JOAN TILL: See, most of my comments I 20 wish were not - - well, I don't care where they go. 21 Obviously I have said the same thing to Mike 22 Gorman upstairs, but most of what I have to say is 23 not going to carry as much impact on him as it 24 would somebody else because we vocalized these 25 things to them before and got nowhere. Is that J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 going to go down, I hope? 2 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: Yes. 3 Everything that you and I are saying is going to 4 be transcribed and written down. 5 Let me just make a couple more comments. 6 Okay. You said that you were upstairs 7 so you know that if you have questions and those 8 kinds of things that you can go up there. 9 JOAN TILL: They don't answer the 10 questions. 11 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: And I'm not 12 able to, because my role here - - I'm not connected 13 with the study team. I'm a neutral - - and so I 14 won't - - if you did have questions, I wouldn't be 15 able to answer and would have to direct you 16 upstairs, where you have just come from. 17 JOAN TILL: And the reporter lady heard 18 me yelling upstairs and followed me downstairs. 19 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: So when we do 20 start, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself 21 for the court reporter. 22 JOAN TILL: As long as I don't have to 23 give my age or weight, I am fine. 24 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: We would like 25 you to spell your last name. J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 JOAN TILL: I can do that. 2 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: And if you 3 are speaking for a group, indicate that as well. 4 So if you don't have any questions, we 5 can begin any time you are ready. 6 JOAN TILL: I am fine as long as you can 7 edit or I can edit as I'm speaking, because much 8 of this was provoked by what I heard upstairs. 9 Some of it I was concerned about before I got here 10 but much - - some of it was provoked by what I 11 heard upstairs. 12 My name is it Joan Till, T-i-l-l. Where 13 I live? 14 HEARING OFFICER LADEHOFF: If you have 15 given that information in the signup sheet, you 16 don't have to give it again. 17 JOAN TILL: When I came here I had two 18 major questions about the process that this has 19 gone through: 20 The first one is that I do now know how 21 many votes by a duly elected body can be ignored 22 or neglected until they get the vote that they 23 want. The commons took a vote in June of 1997 24 that eliminated the East-Close Beltway, which is 25 the one I live on. We were never notified that J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 there was another vote taken, and as far as I know 2 there was not another vote taken. I think this is 3 against any parliamentary procedure that I have 4 ever heard of. 5 In order to add a beltway or a corridor, 6 anything back into procedure, you've got to have a 7 motion, second and revote. This has never been 8 done. There was a second vote taken in December 9 of 1998 in which the Far Beltway was considered 10 the major route. 11 Now, as far as we know there have been 12 no other votes taken until we were informed that 13 in June of this year there is going to be another 14 vote taken. 15 It was my contention that the first two 16 votes should be considered legal; that if nothing 17 in these environmental, historical, archeological 18 studies alter those votes - - and as far as we've 19 been told by HWS, they have not changed any of 20 their feelings - - that those votes should be legal 21 and binding, and if not, we should be informed of 22 the same. 23 That brings up the second problem that 24 occurred when we were upstairs: That they never 25 notified us that we were put back into the beltway J. SUE WURM, RDR WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 study. The historical, the archeological and the 2 environmental studies have all been done without 3 anybody on the East-Close Beltway being notified 4 that we were officially being studied again. We 5 could read it in the newspaper, which is how we 6 found out about it. We talked to Mr. Roger Figard 7 who told us that it was just a technicality; that 8 the federal government had asked us that we be 9 included in the study, but we were not under any 10 active consideration for beltway - - as a beltway 11 corridor. Therefore, a lot of people on the 12 East-Close Beltway never volunteered information. 13 All the historical forms went in the newspaper - - 14 in the wastebasket. All the archeological forms 15 went in the wastebasket. When my neighbor, who I 16 went over and got - - Phyllis Spiedel - - to talk to 17 Roger Figard about this archeological finding that 18 she had on her property, which they have never 19 plowed, whatever, he said, "We don't want to hear 20 about it. That's done and you are in only as 21 another technicality." 22 So my contention is that the 23 archeological, the historical studies done on the 24 East-Close Beltway are totally inadequate. If 25 they are really going to do a good study of those J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 two things, they should notify us again that we 2 are being studied and to everybody, please, you 3 know, put in information that you have. 4 My other point of contention about the 5 studies is the environmental study which I just 6 found out about upstairs. There are three homes 7 that are within a half mile of my home, and I'm on 8 ground zero, I'm at 105th and Pioneer. These 9 three homes are within half a mile of me. None of 10 them are on the map, so how can you do an 11 environmental study when you don't know how many 12 houses you are going to affect? It cannot be a 13 proper study or your findings cannot be considered 14 valid. 15 And he told me they are going to do 16 another environmental study after they select the 17 final route and that way they will know the exact 18 environmental impact. I don't know how many you can 19 pick a route, or let's put it this way: How can 20 you eliminate routes or pick a route when you 21 don't know an impact on the other two routes? 22 Okay. 23 I had one other question that I've 24 talked to the people at HWS about and they don't 25 listen to me, but I'm going to say it anyway; that J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 I contend that there is really no reason for the 2 East Beltway as such. I accept the fact that the 3 south Beltway is necessary. We have the West and 4 we have Interstate 80 on the north. The only 5 reason that anyone is going to use the East 6 Beltway is to go from Omaha to Lincoln or from 7 Lincoln to Omaha, and that can be accomplished by 8 widening - - and this would certainly help the 9 traffic within the city and out in the county - - 10 widening 40th, 48th, 56th, 70th, 84th, 98th, 11 112th, 120th, 134th, 148th. 148th is paved and 12 two lane. That could be four lane because it 13 carries a lot of truck traffic, route traffic from 14 Plattsmouth. Other than that there is no need for 15 an East Beltway, at least carrying north-south 16 traffic. Anything else? 17 That's all I think I have. If I think 18 of anything else, I will write it down. 19 And tell the gentleman that I took the 20 advice and came down and testified. 21 (Testimony concluded at 2:40 p.m.) 22 23 24 25 J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM & ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO 1 C E R T I F I C A T E 2 I, J. Sue Wurm, Registered Diplomate 3 Reporter, do hereby certify that the within and 4 following complete transcript contains all the 5 testimony requested to be transcribed by me and 6 the comments of the hearing officer, from the 7 public hearings held in this matter; and that said 8 complete transcript is a correct and complete 9 transcript of the testimony requested to be 10 transcribed from the record made at the time of 11 said public hearings. 12 13 Dated this 23rd day of April, 2001. ----------------------------------- 14 J. Sue Wurm 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 J. SUE WURM, RDR, JS WURM &B ASSOCIATES, (402) 475-DEPO
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