On Tuesday I wrote that the Ormsby House has become a joke, and it looks like I was right on the spot with that. Today the Nevada Appeal is running a poll on their website, related to the front-page story that work is progressing slowly on opening up Tunnel #2 along the V&T Railroad route. There are several signifigant engineering challenges to overcome in getting the tunnel open again, and the unspoken conclusion of the article is that if it’s not finished soon it could really delay the plan to have the V&T operational by 2009.
So today’s poll asks the question, “Which local project will be completed first?” And your options are the V&T, the Carson City Freeway, or the Ormsby House. Even the paper’s editors couldn’t resist throwing that little jab in there at the Ormsby’s expense. And the public played right along. Currently the freeway is winning with 125 votes to the V&T’s 116. And the poor Ormsby House doesn’t even place, coming in distant third with 67 votes. That’s so funny because that’s the exact opposite order of when they’re all supposed to be finished. The Ormsby House, of course, was supposed to open July 4, 2001. Then it was pushed back to 2003, and now if you ask they’ll probably say, “sometime next summer.” The railroad is to be completed in 2009, and the freeway in 2010. But I guess the freeway gets everyone’s vote of confidence, because although it’s been in the planning stages for 50 years it’s still the only one that seems to have the funds available to finish the job. And you can drive down to the Hwy 50 bridge and see people working on the freeway, where the little work they’re doing on the V&T is hidden up the hills with a small crew of excavators.
And the Ormsby House? Don’t even talk to me about the Ormsby House and their “We are working on it diligently.”
