"Airport Land Deal Report Highly Critical of McCarran Officials"

Tuesday, December 6, 2005

Clark County audit criticizes McCarran Airport land deals 
The Associated Press


LAS VEGAS (AP) - Airport administrators didn't appropriately oversee land
deals with private developers who acquired property under a land disposal
program, according to an audit presented Tuesday to the Clark County
commission. 

"The main problems included insufficient (airport department) oversight of
the land exchange process and with the lease appraisals themselves," the
audit said. 

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly ordered the review last year after the Las
Vegas Review-Journal reported that a broker acquired county land advertised
for use only as a cemetery and sold it to a developer with plans for a
grocery store. 

Land broker Scott Gragson's company, GKT Acquisitions, netted a $5 million
profit in the exchange, the newspaper reported. 

The audit focused on land swaps involving Gragson and Las Vegas appraiser
Timothy Morse. 

The report said public land was transferred to Gragson at no cost during two
separate transactions. Morse had a financial interest in property traded to
the airport, according to the audit. 

Gragson and Morse did not return calls Tuesday for comment. 

Aviation Director Randall Walker, who is responsible for overseeing the
program, said an airport analysis substantiated the auditors' findings and
"personnel measures" were taken against the employee charged with reviewing
the appraisals. He said the supervisor who oversaw the swaps is no longer a
county employee. 

The audit also raised questions about Morse, a longtime Las Vegas appraiser
who, Carroll said, appraised property involved in a land swap in which he
had a financial stake. 

The land disposal program oversees 5,300 acres of land transferred to the
airport by the federal government under the Southern Nevada Public Land
Management Act of 1998. 

It is intended to keep unsuitable developments, such as homes, from being
built under airport flight paths by placing deed restrictions on land before
dealing it to private developers. 

Five percent of the proceeds collected by the airport go to schools, 85
percent is returned to the federal government, and 10 percent is kept by the
airport.


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