Airport land sale policies reviewed

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

Clark County could have written deed restrictions specifying a cemetery for a piece of property sold by the county's aviation department to a local land broker, a deputy district attorney said Monday.

A 38-acre sale a year ago to Las Vegas' Scott Gragson, a sale which the broker quickly resold for a $5 million profit, has prompted an audit of the aviation department's policies and practices for land sales.

Randy Walker, aviation department director, and Gragson have agreed there was nothing illegal about the sale, but critics contend that the original legal notice for the property, which said it could only be used for a cemetery, should have been reflected in the deed restrictions.

The deed instead said the land had to be developed in conformance with the county's master land-use guides and with rules restricting residential development on the site. Walker said last week that he believed there were legal impediments to specifying that the land could only be used for a cemetery.

However, Deputy District Attorney Lee Thomson, who advises the aviation department on land-use issues, said the deed restriction for a cemetery could have been included.

Walker on Monday agreed with Thomson's evaluation. He said the problem from the beginning with the media-fueled furor is that the legal notice and the deeds did not agree.

"There was a change in the language," Walker said. "The original was changed to a more generic type of restriction.

"It could have either way... Either way it would have been acceptable. The problem was, it shouldn't have been different. It should have been done one way or the other."

Walker noted that it was a year from the publication of the legal notice to close the sale on the land in question, near Warm Springs Road and Durango Drive.

"Sometimes people just make mistakes," he said.