The Clark County land grab
Clark County has some great ideas (“Proposal would expand Las Vegas,” Monday Review-Journal). Give the Moapa River Indians 41,000 acres and add 293,000 acres in areas of “critical environmental concern” that would trigger restrictions on recreation. And the county wants 83,000 acres of wilderness that will lock out Nevadans from public lands.
The reason the county officials want to do all that is so the federal government will give them 45,000 acres for development from Jean to Sloan.
Yet, as of now, none of the stakeholders has had any input on this proposal. To me, giving up 417,000 acres for 45,000 acres is not any deal. The Jean area is used by thousands of OHV recreationalist every week. They will be displaced, and the county has no plans for replacing the lost recreation opportunities.
The Jean area brings in millions of tourism dollars and fills up hotel rooms in Jean and Primm.
There is still lots of acreage in the Las Vegas Valley on which developers could expand without taking the Jean recreational area.