County bars airport from negotiating land deals

Stephen Curran

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | 11:08 a.m.

The Clark County Commission on Wednesday formally approved a measure that bars McCarran International Airport from negotiating its own land sales.

Commissioners that morning initially voted 5-0 to approve consolidating all bids to sell Aviation Department-owned land to a single county agency, although Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson-Gates, who was absent that morning, voiced her support that afternoon, so the unanimous vote was amended to 6-0.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald was absent.

The county has tapped its Real Property Management department to handle the centralized transactions, which may eventually include those now handled by Clark County Water Reclamation District, county manager Thom Reilly said.

Under the new policy, which ends the airport's involvement in land transactions, all land sales would occur during a public auction with exceptions for agency-to-agency swaps and sales to nonprofit organizations, he said.

"An auction is more transparent," Reilly said. "It goes to the highest bidder. With a land trade it's harder to justify the long-term benefit to the public."

Since 1998, more than 40 such land trades have occurred, Reilly said.

Speaking about the county's recommendations on Tuesday, Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said the move would free the airport from land-use decisions.

The transactions have come under harsh scrutiny after complaints about deals between the airport and land broker Scott Gragson that made millions of dollars for private interests. Clark County auditors, joined by the district attorney's office, the FBI and federal officials, have since launched a probe into airport land deals.

Some of those land transactions have yielded almost four-fold profits when the buyers went to sell.

That audit, begun in early February, is expected to take at least two months.

Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker was unavailable for comment this morning, airport spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez said.

Reilly said consolidating the real estate functions would present a "significant departure" from existing policy but it would allow for greater oversight in the land deals.

"They (the Aviation Department) do a good job running the airport," Reilly said. "I don't want to second-guess decisions that were made years ago. It just makes more sense to align real estate functions ... I think it's going to be a stronger policy."