That loud bleat you heard in Glitz
City last Thursday was Del Webb Corporation, all
upset that the Las Vegas public is finding out about $50
Gs the company channeled to Senator Harry Reid in
1995 -- apparently for services rendered.
Revealed in Electric Nevada last
week, the
mega-developers' love offerings at the feet of King Harry
had followed the senior senator's heavy-handed pressure
on federal Bureau of Land Management officials to
okay the transfer to Del Webb of some 5,000 acres of
federal real estate -- worth at least an estimated $50
million -- on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
BLM officials say that Reid -- the U.S. Senate
Democrat with the most power over the federal agency as
of 1994 -- began insisting late that year that they
grease the skids for Del Webb's acquisition of the land,
even though all the developer had to offer in exchange
was some Churchill County ranch land of dubious value,
plus a pledge to find additional, other, land not yet
acquired.
On Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada Seniors
Coalition consultant Dr. Larry Paulson, interviewed by
KNEWS radio, discussed the Del Webb campaign
contributions story in Electric Nevada, and the
next day learned -- via a call from the station -- that
Del Webb representatives, irate, had called
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representatives, irate,
had called the station to complain.
Thursday, KNEWS asked Electric Nevada
about the Federal Election Commission reports documenting
the mega-developer's sudden, out-of-the-blue
contributions of $54,000 to the Reid campaign
organization in 1995. That was after the company had
contributed nothing at all to Reid in 1990, '91, '92, '93
and '94, and before it returned to a no-contributions
mode in 1996. EN directed KNEWS to the Environmental
Working Group F.E.C. information website, which has all the info...
Land swaps like the $50 million goodie for Del
Webb that Reid has been pushing are just one of the ways
Nevada taxpayers are being made to subsidize private
developer interests in the Las Vegas Valley. Not only
will Nevada and U.S. taxpayers lose the higher price the
BLM land would bring if put up for competitive bid, they
also, points out Paulson, are being set up to pay a big
chunk of the cost of providing the property with water.
That's because the Southern Nevada Water Authority's
proposed $1.7 billion treatment / transmission facility
-- which goes to that same Del Webb swap
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