Pappas battle with city not over

Erin Neff

Friday, Aug. 25, 2000 | 11:11 a.m.

A long-running and contentious legal battle was heading back to the courts today after members of the Pappas family rejected a final $4.5 million settlement offer from the city of Las Vegas.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said he could not offer one penny more than the record amount reached Aug. 17 by both parties in a tentative agreement in the 7-year-old eminent domain case.

After family members failed to show up for a scheduled 10:30 a.m. appointment at City Hall on Thursday to sign the agreement, Goodman imposed a 5 p.m. deadline.

Attorney Glade Hall came to City Hall at 4:20 p.m. asking if he could sign on behalf of the family and return at a later date with the family members' signatures.

"My word is my bond, and I told them 5 o'clock was the deadline," Goodman said Thursday evening. "If they want to settle tomorrow for $4 million, we'll talk."

The Pappases had asked the city for an additional $120,000 to compensate them for business lost from a parking lot they owned when the Fremont Street Experience parking garage opened.

Goodman, a criminal defense attorney, took over the case in March to save the city legal fees, which had grown to top $1 million. After reaching what he considered an "honorable and fair" offer, Goodman said he was stunned when the Pappases requested the extra $120,000.

The city seized 7,000 square feet of property from the Pappases in 1993 to make way for the Fremont Street Experience parking garage. But the family disputed the city's $340,000 appraisal and sued.

In 1996 then-District Judge Don Chairez found that the city violated eminent domain laws by seizing the property and transferring it to the hotels that belong to the Fremont Street Experience.

Ever since, the case had been in the courts, dominated by the city's appeals and requests by the Pappas family for judges to recuse themselves because they had received campaign contributions from the hotels.

On Aug. 18 the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that $3,800 in contributions District Judge Mark Denton had received from the hotels did not constitute a conflict.

Goodman said he considered the family's rejection of the city's final offer to be foolish, claiming the Pappases won't be able to win more than $4.5 million in the courts.

"No jury's going to give them that," Goodman said. "I think we were overly generous in our offer to make up for the hardships they went through in the past."