EDITORIAL: Jumping through BLM hoops to build schools

For years, officials with the Clark County School District have built some new campuses on land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Nearly 100 schools sit on BLM property.

The district is now going through the process to construct another school on federal land, an elementary school in the southeast valley. A public comment period on the deal — which involves 10 acres and a 25-year lease — ends next week.

The school district isn’t the only public entity that enters into such arrangements. Local nonprofits and municipalities must routinely seek federal permission to build parks, fire stations, hospitals, flood-control projects and other endeavors thanks the BLM’s ubiquitous land holdings in Clark County.

It raises an obvious question: Why does the federal government still control so much real estate in Nevada (nearly 85 percent), particularly in the Las Vegas area? Put aside whether or not the BLM should sell off some of its portfolio to private developers. Why should the federal government represent an obstacle to the school district or other public entities when they are seeking to provide community services?

This is not just a theoretical issue. BLM leases come with a host of stipulations and are subject to the usual bureaucratic inertia, which can hold up decisions for years. Federal restrictions have increased costs for a number of local government agencies forced to deal with them — BLM lease codicils even threaten a Clark County proposal to allow the school district to open campus recreational facilities for more use by community members.

The notion that federal taxpayers would be getting ripped off if the BLM simply transferred land to the school district so it could more easily manage its construction program is ridiculous. The same can be said when it comes to local parks or flood control needs.

Over the past two decades, the feds have indeed made progress in disposing of “nonsensitive” public lands in Clark County, largely thanks to a 2002 bill shepherded through Congress by John Ensign and Harry Reid, Nevada’s two senators at the time. But more needs to be done. County officials are on the verge of finalizing an additional legislative proposal that will likely include a clause requiring the BLM to transfer land to local government agencies for municipal purposes rather than force them to go through the burdensome lease process to build schools and the like. That provision alone is reason to support such legislation.