As North Las Vegas leaders strive to rebrand the city’s downtown corridor — making the area a more vibrant place with housing, shopping and entertainment options — they have their eyes on a 2-acre parcel in a prime spot.

The land sits on the corner of Lake Mead Boulevard and Jefferson Street, which is in the city’s redevelopment area. But the property, surrounded by a chain-link fence and containing vehicles and an aging building, is owned by the Clark County School District.

The Clark County Board of Trustees will consider selling the property — now used as a maintenance yard — at a meeting Thursday evening. The potential land sale, however, has sparked tension within the board. Last year, Board President Deanna Wright sent Trustee Kevin Child a letter accusing him of negotiating the land sale without authority to do so.

Child denied any notion of a backroom deal and, instead, said Wright is trying to “make a mountain out of a molehill.”

The background

Wright’s accusation stems from an email Gina Gavan, director of economic development for North Las Vegas, sent to a school district employee on July 26, 2017. The district’s chief operating officer, Rick Neal, was copied on the email. In it, Gavan said the city sent letters to Child and Trustee Chris Garvey in February expressing interest in purchasing the land.

“The request was for a direct sale in the amount of $680,000 which was the original agreed upon price based on fair market value,” Gavan wrote in the email. “We then met with Trustee Child and agreed to $750,000, which includes some consideration for moving costs.”

(A North Las Vegas spokeswoman said the $680,000 price was agreed-upon by city and school district officials four and a half years ago during a prior negotiation that involved a land swap. The deal never moved forward, though.)

Two months later, Wright sent Child a letter scolding him for going “outside the scope and and duty of a School Board Trustee” per the board’s balanced governance policy. One tenet of the policy gives the day-to-day business operations of the school district to the superintendent. Board members, in turn, are supposed to avoid “over-reach into operations,” the policy states.

“This email shows that you were invading the operations of the school district as well as making agreements with a party that you were not authorized to make,” Wright wrote in a letter dated Sept. 28. “This is inappropriate and not how we govern as Trustees.”

The letter also outlines other alleged actions by Child deemed inappropriate and in violation of the governance policy, including:

----Wrongfully implying during a conversation with former Las Vegas City Councilman Ricki Barlow that the board had decided to cut funding for two programs.

----Making “disparaging remarks” to the news media and others about the board’s decision to make budget cuts.

----Advising news stations and reporters to investigate whether it was wrong for five trustees to attend Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky’s retirement announcement.

“We respect your rights as an individual, but there are appropriate manners of expressing your concerns, yet you choose methods which are disruptive and destructive,” Wright wrote in her letter to Child. “We are asking that you stop violating the Balanced Governance Policies and Regulations that the Board has voted on and agreed to as a whole.”

The letter is just another wrinkle in the strained relationship between Child and other members of the board and school district. In October, Skorkowsky banned Child from visiting district property because of ongoing complaints about his behavior. Child, who has criticized Skorkowsky’s handling of district finances, has called the complaints unfounded and “politically driven.”

The response

Wright did not elaborate on the contents of the letter when contacted by The Nevada Independent. She sent one text message in reply, saying she believes Child pushed the board into a “bad deal” regarding the land.

Gavan said the city did not engage in any “intentional negotiation” with Child, whose district includes the land in question. The topic came up naturally during one of Child’s conversations with North Las Vegas officials about schools in his district, she said, noting that the city has been interested in the property for years.

“There was nothing that was out of alignment,” Gavan said.

Child echoed Gavan’s recollection of the conversation. The real-estate broker, who ran for multiple local and state offices before being elected to the school board in 2014, said he simply told North Las Vegas officials that it looked like a “pretty good offer.”

“How can I agree to a sale when I know I have to get four votes?” he said, referring to approval by the seven-member Board of Trustees. “I would never break a law.”

Garvey, who received a letter of interest from North Las Vegas last February, said she never agreed to a sale price. The trustee said she’s had two conversations over the years about the potential land sale — once with Mayor John Lee in Skorkowsky’s office and, later, a phone conversation with Gavan.

Garvey said she always has had questions about the possible land sale. While part of her wants to be a “good neighbor” and help North Las Vegas with its redevelopment efforts, Garvey said she doesn’t want any land sale to wind up costing the school district more money down the line.

“I’m just not going to give away the farm when it comes to the school district,” she said. “It’s just not the right thing to do.”

Child, who placed the matter on the board’s agenda, said the maintenance-yard operations could be moved to land owned by the district on Cheyenne Avenue. He characterized the current maintenance yard as “an old piece of property” better suited for North Las Vegas’ redevelopment efforts.

“It actually would save the district money,” he said.

Gavan said city officials will attend the school board meeting to “share the importance” of what the land means to their redevelopment plans. The city’s $750,000 offer is above market value, she said.

School district officials said the city’s offer is about $139,000 more than the average of the last several appraisals the district received for the land in 2017. The district estimates it would cost more than $3.7 million to build a replacement yard and building if factoring in construction costs, architect and engineering fees and offsite improvements.