Officials try to decide how to spend land sale money

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2000 | 2:24 a.m.

Mike Dwyer, project manager for the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, has released a proposal outlining how federal officials will decide how to spend their share.

The draft, dated Dec. 21, is up for public scrutiny through Feb. 25. Residents can give their comments at meetings in Las Vegas on Wednesday and Reno on Feb. 10.

A little more than 3,539 acres of urban-locked Bureau of Land Management land in Clark County have been auctioned off for about $77 million under the 1998 law.

Under the act, 85 percent of the money from the land sales goes into a special fund used for buying environmentally sensitive land, building local parks and trails, paying for projects within the Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan and making capital improvements on existing federal land.

Ten percent helps pay for Southern Nevada water projects, and the remaining 5 percent goes into public education coffers.

The 33-page document explains who would nominate sensitive lands for purchase and suggest capital improvements and how the projects would be ranked and chosen.

Critics say they don't have huge problems with the proposed criteria for choosing sensitive land and projects, but the process of who gets input into the recommendations and when they can comment is drawing fire.

The proposal doesn't give the general public or local government officials enough say where it counts, Jane Feldman of the Sierra Club's Southern Nevada Chapter said.

"There is no place for meaningful public comment in the decision-making process," Feldman said. "It's kind of a shame to make a huge public process that's unwieldy, but it's only fair when there's so much money at stake. We want to be a part of that."

The management plan isn't the final stop for spending decisions. It is for making final recommendations to the Department of the Interior secretary, who has to give final approval for all land purchases and projects.

Cindy Trulove, of the Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan administered by Clark County, said the pecking order for making those recommendations places the local contingency at the bottom.

Dwyer emphasized that the document is not a final plan and that all concerns will be heard.

"That's the reason why we've got this thing out in draft. If they've got some suggestions, that would be great," he said.