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1 PUBLIC HEARING
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3 IN RE: DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL )
IMPACT STATEMENT AND DRAFT )
4 SECTION 4(F) STATEMENT )
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5 SOUTH AND EAST BELTWAYS, )
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA )
6 PROJECT NO. DPU-3300(1) )
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10 Hearings held April 23 and 24, 2001, at the
Lincoln Berean Church, 6400 S. 70th Street,
11 Hearing Room 3, Lincoln, Nebraska
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15 A P P E A R A N C E S
16 HEARING OFFICER: Mr. David Behrns
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19 WITNESS: Mr. Jim Pearson
10401 "A" Street
20 Lincoln, Nebraska
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1 (At 3:38 p.m. on April 23, 2001, with
2 Hearing Officer Behrns, Witness Jim Pearson and the
3 court reporter being present, the following
4 testimony was given:)
5 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: If you would
6 please state your name and spell your last name, if
7 you would, please?
8 MR. PEARSON: Sure. Jim Pearson.
9 P-e-a-r-s-o-n.
10 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: Okay. And are
11 you here to represent yourself or a group?
12 MR. PEARSON: Myself.
13 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: Okay. Go
14 ahead.
15 MR. PEARSON: And we are -- we live at
16 10401 "A" Street, you probably need that. And I
17 don't know, how do you want to -- what's your
18 normal standard operation here? Do you just want
19 concerns?
20 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: Whatever
21 opinion you have, whatever testimony you have we'll
22 take it down verbatim.
23 MR. PEARSON: Okay. First of all, of
24 course, I guess we, some of the folks that live out
25 there, and I guess that includes myself whose
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1 property is on the innermost corridor would
2 probably be -- well, not only would we be affected,
3 I'm sure we'd probably be gone.
4 We live right on -- within 100 feet of
5 105th Street. And I don't believe, in looking at
6 the latest evidence upstairs or at least the latest
7 data that I could find, there's still adequate
8 information that's going to give everybody the full
9 picture as to exactly what's still out there or
10 what has been built out there in the last six
11 months to a year and probably longer than that.
12 I guess my concern is and maybe it's
13 more of a question I should have asked upstairs
14 was: Are they still using old information on the
15 number of houses that are out there? And we've got
16 a neighbor just put up a 5- or $600,000 home that's
17 not shown on there. A lot of farm ponds have gone
18 up right through there. It's a major wetland area
19 right through there. Of course, there's -- you'd
20 have to have a major trail crossing of the MoPac in
21 that particular area.
22 But I guess the bigger concern I've got
23 is number one, why an existing roadway of 148th is
24 not used. That question's been asked a lot and our
25 federal friends tell us that that's every bit as
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1 eligible to become a beltway as anything else going
2 through the midland part of the section. And I
3 guess that's one question I'd really like to have
4 answered. Why 148th is not considered, number one.
5 Number two, is there actually empirical
6 engineering data that would support any kind of
7 East Beltway? And I think if you really grind the
8 numbers out and look at them, we've done that in a
9 couple of different instances, and I don't think
10 you're going to find any justification for the
11 Beltway, period, other than what exists out there
12 in terms of service to that east portion of town to
13 serve north-south traffic.
14 Those are my concerns. It's going to
15 affect a lot of people and I really feel like a lot
16 of things have not been taken into consideration as
17 far as what roadways already exist and who's going
18 to use them.
19 Last but not least, it's a heck of a
20 waste of taxpayer's money, I believe. Unless the
21 City of Lincoln can come up with the dollars, I
22 don't believe you're going to see any State
23 Department Roads that will ever want to touch the
24 thing with a 10-foot pole because of costs
25 associated. And there's already a 30-year wait to
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1 get on the list of wanna-be projects. And thank
2 goodness, I guess, I don't live in the City of
3 Lincoln, I'm not paying those high taxes.
4 But it's a whole lot easier had I've had
5 a lot of experience, some experience with road
6 work, Federal Highway Department of Roads, et
7 cetera. And I probably have said more than I
8 should but it's a whole lot easier to get a road
9 added to a system that already exists if they're
10 even looking at putting the Beltway on the State
11 system.
12 I think you could talk to most anybody
13 over there and they'll tell you it's not even an
14 option at the moment. South Beltway, yes. East,
15 no. That's it. Any other information I can -- you
16 need?
17 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: Not that I can
18 think of.
19 MR. PEARSON: I want to thank you for
20 the time.
21 HEARING OFFICER BEHRNS: Thank you for
22 coming.
23 (Testimony concluded at 3:45 p.m.)
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1 C E R T I F I C A T E
2 I, Deborah D. Cooley, court reporter, do
3 hereby certify that the within and foregoing
4 complete transcript contains all the testimony
5 requested to be transcribed by me and the comments
6 of the hearing officer, from the public hearings
7 held in this matter; and that said complete
8 transcript is a correct and complete transcript of
9 the testimony requested to be transcribed from the
10 record made at the time of said public hearings.
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12 Dated this 25th day of April, 2001.
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14 _________________________
Deborah D. Cooley
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