Sam Lompa drives a tractor as Mark Arraiz drops hay for cattle on the Lompa Ranch in this photo taken in 2002. The Lompa family and Nevada Department of Transportation settled on a price Monday for property needed for the Carson City freeway. Nevada Appeal file photos
The Lompa family will receive $12 million in a settlement with the state for 82 acres of their ranchland needed for the Carson City freeway, parties announced Tuesday.
The settlement agreement, reached Monday, ends lengthy negotiations between the Nevada Department of Transportation and the longtime ranching family.
"I think the history of this acquisition shows that NDOT has indeed come a long way," said Lompa attorney Laura FitzSimmons. "It ended up extremely positive."
The state offered the family nearly $1.8 million in 2000 for 122 acres officials thought were needed to construct the freeway and accompanying drainage system through the ranch. The family declined to sell and hired an attorney, seeking appraisals for what they believed could be a fair price for the land.
After further study, the amount of land needed was decreased to 82 acres and a second offer was made in 2002 for $2.8 million, which was also declined.
The freeway project moved forward, with the state gaining right-of-way last year, as the Lompas waited for an independent appraisal.
"It's not something you want, but there is nothing I can do to stop it," Sam Lompa Jr., told the Appeal in 2001. "All we want is what's fair."
Recently, two independent appraisals obtained by the family set the price for the land at $15.3 million and $18.1 million. The $12 million payment was a negotiated settlement before the case reached the courts.
"This agreement avoids us having to go through lengthy court proceedings," said transportation Director Jeff Fontaine. "It allows us at NDOT to focus on completing the freeway project. We think it's a fair settlement."
NDOT obtained the right to enter the property and begin the project last year.
The family matriarch, Eva Lompa, died last summer in the small house on the ranch. In her final years, she vowed to keep the 430 acres left of the sprawling property a working ranch. Her husband, Sam Lompa, originally bought the property in the 1930s and raised dairy cows on the 820-acre farm.
The couple and their three children sold dairy products to a creamery in Minden. Once the creamery left town in the early 1960s, the ranch was converted into a cattle ranch and is now operated by Sam Lompa Jr.
The land has been sold off slowly as Carson City's growth has surrounded it. Carson City High School is on one corner of the original ranchland, after the Lompa family donated part of the property.
Monday's settlement will allow both parties to move forward, they said.
"The Lompas feel relieved," FitzSimmons said. "With Eva's passing, I think we all hope Eva would have been proud of us. I know they took their obligations to preserve the family heritage very seriously."
Contact Jill Lufrano at jlufrano@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.
