OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Reporter Molly Hudson has spent the last year talking with neighbors in east Omaha who learned a business park was planned for this area. Over the last several months, while business groups and local leaders have been talking, neighbors have waited for actual answers about the neighborhood's future.
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“Everybody is trying to stick together down here, and get through this," said Abraham Lincoln who has lived in the neighborhood all his life.
Many in this neighborhood like Lincoln have lived in this area for decades.
“This is kind of a family street, I was raised in that house right next door,” said Lincoln.
A familiar story to Racheal Hoefker on the other side of the neighborhood who I first spoke with back in February.
“We have family over here, family on the next block, family on the next block, family all the way down," Hoefker said.
In the 12 months since the project was first announced, some have held off on home projects. Others have told me they've wondered where they'd go if they were forced to sell.
For Lincoln, the answer is easy, he has no plans of leaving.
“The attitude I got is I don't even want them to talk to me, you know, because I don't want to move and they are not going to pay me for what I need, you know," Lincoln said.
Developers have said that it will be up to the homeowners on if they want to sell.
“We would immediately begin to start to talk to them individually and hopefully within a reasonable period of time we'd know exactly where we were at with that community," said Michael Maroney, president and CEO of the Omaha Economic Development Corporation.
And their plan will be made based on those responses.
But those conversations have been delayed because the Omaha Inland Port Authority board and developers continue their back and forth over how to even start the process of just talking with homeowners.
“They still don't have a letter of support," said Sen. Terrell McKinney.
While on Thursday the Inland Port Authority overall voted to work toward an agreement to release some funding to the project for that process, Sen. McKinney voted no and wants to see more.
“I still think it's too much; I mean they have this, they submitted this proposal but it's really just a proposal it's not a plan on how to use the dollars," McKinney said.
Molly: “You could best describe the feeling of just the unknown almost a year later what's the best way to describe it?"
Lincoln: “It’s aggravating, it's very aggravating."
The next Inland Port Authority meeting is on January 2.
