Obviously, the government entity is reluctant to pay the land-owner’s asking price; otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered seizing the land under eminent domain.

In Nevada, the problem is that there are fewer than 15 appraisers currently licensed by the state to testify in such cases. Under current law, if the government decided to seize Steve Wynn’s new Las Vegas resort-hotel in order to drive a freeway through the site, Mr. Wynn would not be allowed to testify as to the value of the property, since he is not one of those licensed appraisers. But Tim Morse -- now a household name for his championship yo-yo work on the Scott Gragson airport land transfers -- would.

The problem, points out local attorney Laura FitzSimmons (whose legal practice now exclusively involves representing property owners in such cases) is that this gives the state “the power to discipline appraisers who testify against the government on behalf of Nevada land owners in these cases.”

Nor are such threats merely hypothetical. “The state has gone after the licenses of three appraisers who have worked for land owners against the government in condemnation cases,” Ms. FitzSimmons reports. “These cases are prosecuted by the attorney general’s office -- the same office that represents the Nevada Department of Transportation” -- the very department most often involved in seizing such properties in the first place.

“The most obscene example of this practice,” in Ms. FitzSimmons’ view, was “the state prosecution of Jim Himes, who worked for the land owners in two NDOT Carson City condemnation cases” in 1999 and 2004.

The chilling effect of such retaliation, according to lawyer FitzSimmons, is that “Because the state has the ability to punish appraisers who testify on behalf of land owners against the government, very few are willing to become expert witnesses against NDOT.”

Ms. FitzSimmons presents the example of Tami Campa-Close of Las Vegas, who testified on this subject in Carson City earlier this year.

“I have been personally intimidated by NDOT on two occasions,” Ms. Campa-Close says in an e-mail, “which is why I have never agreed to testify to value against NDOT.”

In one case, an NDOT appraiser told Ms. Campa-Close he had been sent by the authorities to watch her testify. He sat directly in front of her in court, “and kept pulling out a silver object that looked like a tape recorder. I was very intimidated by his presence. ...”

Although Ms. Campa-Close had never had a complaint filed against her in 27 years as a Nevada real estate broker and real estate appraiser, anonymous complaints about the appropriateness of her appraisals did start to be filed against her as soon as she started testifying for the private property owners in eminent domain cases, she reports.

How can the property owners get a fair shake in trials held to establish the value of their seized property, if there is such a limited field of professional witnesses available, and those witnesses are licensed and therefore subject to career-wrecking discipline by the state, discouraging them from ever “crossing” the government by contesting its low-ball land-value estimates?

They can’t.

A good start at a solution is Assembly Bill 341, which adds persons who assess property values in condemnation cases to an existing list of those who are exempt from the state licensing and disciplinary provisions of NRS 645C.

The bill further levels the playing field by allowing property owners to present testimony from other qualified witnesses, including economists, real estate brokers, etc. (The trial judge would still have the final say as to which witnesses qualify as “experts” and to what extent their opinions should be considered “expert testimony.”)

The deck is already stacked against lawful, tax-paying property owners, as we have seen again and again. This is a necessary bill which would partially rectify existing inequities when “little-guy” land owners come up against the inexhaustible (because they’re funded with the land owners’ own taxes, and ours) resources of government.

The state Senate approved AB 341 with only one puzzled “nay.” The Assembly is expected to OK this needed reform almost as vociferously.

The concern now is that -- having ducked the chance to step forward and confront these revelations in the light of day -- the land-grabbers at the Nevada Department of Transportation are biding their time, skulking in the shadows, waiting for Gov. Kenny Guinn, who sits as the Head of the State Transportation Board, to quietly veto this bill for them.

Gov. Guinn has not been an impartial arbiter in such matters. Ms. FitzSimmons reports “The governor is the one who repeatedly called my little old rancher lady Eva Lompa ‘unreasonable’ when she didn’t accept NDOT’s offer of $2.8 million to cut her ranch (which had been in her family for about 80 years) in half. Even though the state had filed charges against my appraiser because he ‘cost the state money’ in an earlier condemnation case (Serpa, 1999), he hung in there and because of his courage we were able to settle the Lompa case for $12 million.”

Gov. Guinn should sign this good bill, which won overwhelming legislative support after our delegates did their job, held hearings, and got to the bottom of the way the current crooked racket really works.