After keeping a low profile during the summer, the groups opposing the Front Range Toll Road are gearing up for battle once again.Two bills that would have placed restrictions on the 220-mile privately funded project passed by wide margins during the 2005 Colorado legislative session but Gov. Owens vetoed the bills last June.Citizens’ groups, including the Peyton-based Eastern Plains Citizen’s Coalition, spent the summer monitoring the monthly meetings of the Transportation Legislative Review Committee, comprised of state legislators who meet between legislative sessions. The citizens’ groups also met with state and local elected officials to hammer out strategies for the upcoming legislative session.At the final meeting of the transportation committee in October, Sen. Tom Wiens (R-Castle Rock) introduced legislation almost identical to his 2005 bill vetoed by the governor. The legislation prohibits private companies from using the right of eminent domain to condemn land to build private toll roads. Rep. Jack Pommer (D-Louisville), chairman of the transportation review committee, reintroduced the other vetoed bill, which requires corporations to notify citizens of their intent to build a toll road and to comply with all Colorado Department of Transportation environmental standards. Both bills will go to the Legislature in January.Ray Wells, owner of the Front Range Toll Road Company that will build the highway, filed for incorporation in 1986, but property owners on the eastern plains only became aware of the proposed road in late 2004. The road would run parallel to I-25 but approximately 25 miles east of the interstate, starting in Wellington and ending south of Pueblo. A spokesperson for the company stated in an April 2005 article in The New Falcon Herald that detailed maps of the highway’s route would soon be available. However, the only publicly available map of the proposed route is still the original, which shows a 12-mile wide highway corridor.Opponents of the toll road include those who are primarily concerned about how a recent U.S. Supreme court decision might affect the rights of property owners in the toll road corridor. In the June Supreme Court ruling, Kelo vs. New London (CT), the court gave local government the right to use eminent domain power to take private property and transfer it to private investors for projects that foster economic development.Colorado Citizens for Property Rights, a recently formed coalition headed by Marcia Looper, who is also co-chair of the eastern plains group, is sponsoring a voters’ initiative to prohibit a private company from using the power of eminent domain to take private property for economic development. In the Kelo case, the city of New London wanted to condemn private homes and then transfer ownership to private investors, who plan to build a hotel, condominiums and a riverwalk.”The Constitution says [that eminent domain can be used] “only for public use,” Looper said. “A Target, a Wal-Mart or a private road are not for public use. That’s for profit.” The initiative, sponsored by Rep. Al White (R-Fraser), restricts the definition of “public use” to use for public agencies and utilities. The initiative also states the public benefits of economic development … shall not constitute a public use.” Even if a private project will contribute favorably to the tax base, the builder of the project can’t take private property.Looper said the Front Range Toll Road is all about private profit. “Their only motive is profit – it’s not for the public good,” she said. “They should be held to the same standards as the Federal government or higher when it comes to taking people’s homes and businesses and livelihoods.”Other sponsors of the initiative include Jessica Peck Corry of the Golden-based Independence Institute, a public policy research center that, according to their Web site, “addresses a broad variety of public policy issues from a free-market, pro-freedom perspective.” The group is currently fighting a campaign-finance complaint against the institute and its “Vote No It’s Your Dough” committee for not disclosing its anti-Referendum C donors.”It should be a much more difficult process to make a claim against 77,000 property owners in Colorado,” said Robert Thomasson of the Front Range Toll Road Warriors, an Elbert County-based group. He recently filed incorporation papers with the Colorado secretary of state for a toll road of his own, which he calls the Owens-Wells Memorial Freeway. Members of another anti-toll road group, NoSuperSlab.org, have also filed papers to build a toll road called the Castle Rock Alternative Parkway (CRAP). The highway’s proposed route runs through Ray Wells’ living room. “All you need to do is pay a $50 filing fee and you, too, can have the power of eminent domain,” Thomasson said.Thomasson’s group focuses on educating the public about transportation issues, including the need for environmental impact and feasibility studies. Thomasson emphasized that more time and effort needs to be devoted to determine the need for and viability of all state transportation projects, including toll roads.”If the toll road has to happen, let it be done responsibly and based on good law.”
