Lawsuit renews questions
about who owns Reno’s streets
Thanks to an obscure 1868
land transaction, Stanford and the University of
California system might own Reno's downtown streets --
much to their surprise.
"I haven't heard of a
case like this before," Debra Zumwalt, Stanford's
acting general counsel, said in a telephone interview
Feb. 15. "But we were brought into the suit and we
have a fiduciary duty to the trust to look out for assets
and look out for our position."
Washoe District Court
Judge Steven Kosach is expected to rule soon on a lawsuit
between the city and local casinos. In the past, the city
has charged casinos rent for the skywalks they built over
downtown streets.
But Harrah's Reno and the
Flamingo Hilton casinos stopped making lease payments to
the city and put the rental fees into an escrow account
when questions were raised about who actually owns the
so-called air rights above the streets.
At some point in the legal
wrangling, the question of ownership was linked to a
decision made in 1868 by San Francisco's "Big
Four" businessmen -- Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins,
Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington. They decided to
sell the subdivided lots on an 80-acre parcel of land to
city dwellers, but apparently kept the streets, a not
uncommon practice in the late 19th-century West.
Lawyers for Stanford and
the UC system are working cooperatively as they wait for
a decision by the judge on pending motions for summary
judgment, according to Carol Dillon, Stanford's outside
real estate lawyer. The judge could decide in favor of
the city, the casinos or the universities.
If ownership were awarded
to the universities, the University of California would
be entitled to half of the property, that owned by
Hopkins and Huntington. Stanford would acquire the
one-quarter share owned by Leland Stanford.
"We have an
obligation to take this seriously enough not to squander
the assets of the university, if that's what they
are," Dillon said in a telephone interview.
"But this was not
something we solicited," she added. SR
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