Judgment against county finalized

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1999 | 11:10 a.m.

District Judge Sally Loehrer Monday finalized an earlier ruling that Clark County must return land near McCarran International Airport to its original owners, pay them $2.7 million in addition to $13.8 million already paid and give them $180,192 in monthly rent until vacant homes on the land are removed.

The county already has spent almost $30 million in an attempt to condemn two mobile home parks in the flight path of the airport.

Loehrer proposed a ruling on Aug. 23 that the heirs of Las Vegas pioneer Maxwell Kelch could keep the $13.8 million Clark County has already paid them for the land and that the county should continue to pay more than $180,000 per month in rent until the Tropicana Avenue land is cleared of vacated mobile homes and the property is returned to the owners.

She then gave the county an opportunity to file further briefs.

Deputy District Attorney Mike Foley, representing the county, did not return phone calls about the ruling this morning, and it was not clear whether the county would appeal.

The county began three years ago to take over the 30-acre site on Tropicana across from the airport because the property was in the glide path of the new Runway 19.

The county spent about $15 million to relocate more than 300 tenants from the Treasure Lodge and Las Vegas mobile home parks. The cost included the construction of a new mobile home park off Las Vegas Boulevard south of the airport.

The county then proposed turning the land over to the J.A. Tiberti Co. for development into a golf course, condominium and convention resort.

Attorneys for the landowners sued, saying that the condemnation was a back-door and perhaps fraudulent redevelopment scheme.

The landowners said they should have been given the right to make that deal, or any other deal, or they should have been given a chance to develop the land themselves according to standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The county's Department of Aviation abandoned the condemnation action rather than fight the lawsuit.