Columnist Susan Snyder: Lots up for grabs in Elko

Monday, April 7, 2003 | 8:24 a.m.

Pssssst, Buddy.

Wanna buy a chunk of Elko County?

Or at least a lot?

We're not talking about "a lot" as in a whole mess. We're talking about an actual lot -- a building lot. Elko County is putting 165 tax-delinquent lots up for Internet auction today.

"We have so much land here," Elko County Treasurer Caesar Salicchi said Friday. "But it's not the best in the world, and we don't have any local buyers."

Hmmmmm. The locals don't want 'em?

Still, the human animal will buy pretty much anything over the Internet. There's no reason a book or CD should be more appealing than land in the town that gave us the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade property rights activists.

No reason, except overdue taxes.

"Some of it was pretty high (priced), so people didn't bid on it," he said. "They want to buy it cheap and resell it."

It's cheap, all right. Salicchi set the starting bids at $350. Bid increments must be at least $100.

Prospective buyers can find them all on bid4assets.com. On Friday website surfers could find the Elko listings by looking at the column down the left side of the Web page and clicking on "Elko County, NV tax sale," under "Special Opportunities."

Well, this land is special all right. It is all that remains of plans a developer once had to build a subdivision called Meadow Valley.

The lots have no water or electricity connections. And a visitor can't exactly breeze in for a look-see. They sit along a barely graded dirt road that runs northeast from Elko, parallel to the south side of Interstate 80.

The road's name? Last Chance Road.

Priceless.

Salicchi said the county is paying $75 per parcel for each bid4assets.com listing, and the whole deal needed the blessing of the Elko County district attorney's office.

"It took quite awhile to put this thing together," the county treasurer said. "It's a whole new thing. There's been a lot of learning to go with it."

The idea for Meadow Valley was first conceived in the 1960s, Salicchi said. The plans sat untouched for several years until a developer bought the land in the 1970s and moved forward with the project.

Or at least, he tried.

He couldn't get the things to pass federal housing inspections.

"So he just walked off," Salicchi said. "He went down to Florida and got into it there too. Then he moved to Canada."

Still, even land with no connections is worth something. Salicchi said buyers from outside Nevada often pick up parcels for low prices, then turn around and sell them at a profit.

"We have a lady from Washington state who comes down and buys a lot, turns around and almost has it sold before we can get a deed to her," he said.

Airplanes, tractors, even whole towns have been put up for sale on the Internet. Salicchi figured, why not parts of Elko County?

"We're going for a whirl and see what the hell happens," he said.

And if the land sells well, there's plenty more where that came from.

"I have about 2,000 to sell," he said.

Shovel not included.