Auditor urges investigation of airport appraiser

Stephen Curran

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 | 10:44 a.m.

The Las Vegas real estate appraiser at the center of what county auditors say are questionable land transactions should have to answer to state regulators, according to a report presented Tuesday.

In a presentation to the Clark County Commission, Audit Department Director Jerry Carroll recommended the board ask the state Real Estate Division to investigate appraiser Tim Morse for his role in several deals between McCarran International Airport officials and land broker Scott Gragson.

The 30-minute presentation at the board's regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting was the first in a protracted review of the deals started in February. A second, more comprehensive report on 91 separate transactions is expected to come before the commission in September or October.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid directed county staff to submit the request for an investigation of Morse, who was suspended from doing any more work for the county until the state's investigation is complete.

"There were a lot of mistakes (in how the land was appraised) and you have to question whether they were honest," Reid said.

Appraisal consultant Bradley Wood, who was hired by the county to independently review the transactions, said Morse did not provide enough information about how he arrived at the land values for Wood's firm to conclude if his methods were appropriate.

Wood said the audit revealed "a number of issues where we have questions (and) several areas that appear to be inappropriate."

Metro Police, the Clark County district attorney's office and FBI are now reviewing whether the land deals broke any laws. Their findings are expected in the second report later this summer.

Morse did not return calls to his Las Vegas office on Tuesday. In a statement released later that afternoon through The Rogich Communications Group, attorney Don Campbell called the request for state regulators to investigate Morse "a blatant, disgusting attempt to make a scapegoat of someone -- anyone -- other than the Clark County officials who approved every real estate transaction."

Gragson did not return calls seeking comment.

Hiring Wood's firm, Los Angeles-based Marshall Stevens, was an attempt by commissioners to discredit Morse using a "competitive out-of-state appraisal firm to seek technical interpretations of appraisal opinions to protect its own," Campbell said.

Morse was chosen by Gragson in 2002 to evaluate the value of property that Aviation Department officials had said was to be limited to a cemetery but was later rezoned for more lucrative commercial use.

He was one of five appraisers used by the county to review parcels for sale under a plan adopted two years earlier to dispose of land transferred to the county from the Bureau of Land Management.

Critics have said the deals, which have allowed private buyers to resell the properties at profits of up to $32 million, cast doubt on how the county appraised more than 5,200 acres put on the market under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.

In a written response to Carroll's report and another conducted by Marshall Stevens, Aviation Director Randy Walker disputed auditors' claim that the department may have tried to influence how the land was zoned, saying aviation officials do not have a say in how the land is developed.

"We believe that the auditor has misinterpreted the disposal program," Walker wrote. "There was never any intention to control or to have input into the development of land disposed either by auction or trade."

Changes to how land sold or traded as part of the disposal program was used were outside his department's scope and were instead the jurisdiction of the county Zoning Board, he wrote.

Campbell, Morse's attorney, said the profits some of Morse's clients made by "flipping" the properties were irrelevant.

"Mr. Morse has been doing business in Las Vegas without incident for more than 32 years and is generally considered among the best in his profession," Campbell said in the statement.

"The fact that others made significant financial profits by 'flipping' various properties in a short period of time has nothing at all to do with legitimate appraisals at the time the appraisals were performed."

Questions surrounding these transactions prompted the commission in April to centralize all sales of airport-owned land to the county's Real Property Management Department. The policy is one of several new regulations praised by auditors.

Commissioners have approved 11 sweeping policy changes since questions began swirling around the land deals. Had they been in effect when the deals were being negotiated, the rules would have prevented the concerns now facing the county, Carroll said.