Toll road talk brings crowd

Bill unanimously passed by panel ensures CDOT input

Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 20, 2006 at midnight

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One more hearing on imposing stricter rules for private toll roads, one more caravan of hundreds of eastern Plains residents to the Capitol on Wednesday to protect their private properties.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Jack Pommer passed unanimously out of the House Transportation and Energy Committee, following nearly four hours of emotional and sometimes angry testimony from people in the path of the proposed toll road.

"All you young whippersnappers, don't make us come down here again," said 74-year-old rancher Harlan Williams of Elbert. This is at least the fourth time a large contingent of Plains folk has trekked to Denver to make sure they wouldn't lose their land to a private profit-making venture.

About 300 people came for the committee hearing, forcing it once more into the larger Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol.

Pommer negotiated the bill with all the parties, including Gov. Bill Owens, who last year vetoed an earlier Pommer attempt to regulate private toll roads.

House Bill 1003 grew out of the controversy over developer Ray Wells' proposal for a 200-mile-plus "Super Slab" toll road bypassing the Front Range urban corridor between Fort Collins and Pueblo. He also wants to incorporate a rail line and utility pipeline space within the project.

Opponents say it threatens their rural way of life.

"Every penny we have is invested in our home," said a tearful Pat Vera-Link, who lives on 40 acres off a dirt road north of Bennett.

"We sacrificed a great deal to be able to purchase the land. We love the peace and quiet. We love the sunrises and sunsets."

The bill requires private toll road developers to submit their projects to a substantially similar process that the Colorado Department of Transportation must go through when it wants to develop a new highway.

That means Wells, whose firm wants to build the corridor to handle toll traffic in addition to trains now plying slowly through Denver proper and utility pipelines, would have to do environmental studies, fund any mitigation for those impacts, and go through planning departments and agencies in seven counties before he could turn a spade of dirt.

Under an existing 19th century law, a private toll road could be built with minimal scrutiny.

An earlier bill, already signed into law this legislative session, strips private toll road companies of the power to condemn property.

Instead, with Pommer's bill, Wells would have to partner with CDOT and satisfy the state that the road is necessary before CDOT would then be able to condemn land.

The bill also stipulates the toll- road corridor will be no wider than 3 miles. Wells had originally proposed a 12-mile-wide swath.

Kathy Oatis, a spokeswoman for Wells, said the firm can live with the law and that it always intended to follow strict environmental guidelines. She also said the bill allows the road to meander sufficiently so that it can cut around some homes.

A large contingent was present for the hearing from St. Mary's Orthodox Church in Calhan, a 101-year-old institution with Slovak roots in the area back to the 1880s.

Father Lawrence Gaudreau, the priest from St. Mary's, said there are more than 60 families and six generations of members tied to the land. Many of them own agricultural land surrounding the church.

"I don't want my church taken down," he said.

Pommer, a Boulder Democrat, later said he would amend his bill to prohibit CDOT from taking church or cemetery property for a private toll road.

A number of the Plains residents want Wells' project stopped entirely.

But Pommer's bill was supported by most of them, who say it gives them the tools they need to try to stop it through local, regional and state planning and environmental study processes.

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