Gibbons, Washoe officials visit proposed Incline school site

INCLINE VILLAGE - Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., along with a group of Washoe County school officials and architects on Wednesday walked through the woods where they hope a new Incline elementary school will be built.

"I know this site will work," Gibbons said Wednesday at the proposed site near Northwood and Village boulevards.

Gibbons was walking with Steve Williams and Dale Sanderson from the Washoe County School District as well as Gary Midkiff, a land-use consultant, and architect Jeff Lundahl.

A combined effort between both sides of Nevada's congressional delegation, which includes Gibbons and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is attempting to convince the U.S. Forest Service to sell a parcel of Santini-Burton protected land to the school district.

"It makes perfect sense," Gibbons added.

Incline Elementary School and the school district have been looking for a home for a satellite campus for more than two years.

Hamstringed by little buildable land suitable for a school, the district has few options on where to build a new campus.

"We don't have a pick of two dozen sites," Midkiff said.

Williams said the idea for a satellite campus was the result of Incline Village parents and teachers talking to one another.

The delegation is blitzing the rest of Congress on three fronts in an attempt to pass a bill allowing the Forest Service to sell the land to the school district.

Gibbons introduced HR 4656 to Congress, which calls for the government to allow the sale of the land to the district. A similar bill in the Senate, S 2728, was introduced by Bryan and co-sponsored by Reid.

At the same time, all three legislators are trying to attach a rider to an appropriations bill authorizing the government to sell the land.

Gibbons said attaching a rider to the appropriations bill would be the quickest way to make the land sale happen.

"We're trying not to create a precedent," Gibbons said of the delegation's efforts. "We're doing this for the public. The purpose of the Santini-Burton Act was to preserve stream areas and environmentally sensitive lands. We're still keeping with that."

The school district has more than $8 million set aside for campus construction, but will most likely use about $900,000 it has in its coffers from another land sale to buy the parcel just north of the shopping center, said Sanderson, school district plant facilities chief.

Gibbons said the Congress should start moving on bills in September and that will be when Nevada's congressional legislators will know if they have the support of the rest of the House and Senate.

"We need everybody's support," he said, adding that White House support of the new bills is crucial as well.