New Incline Village school proposed on national forest land

RENO - The Forest Service would sell 8.7 acres of national forest land to the Washoe County School District to build a new elementary school at Incline Village, under a bill Nevada lawmakers introduced in Congress Wednesday.

Washoe County approved a school bond issue in 1998 that included $8 million for construction of the new elementary school at the affluent Lake Tahoe community but school district officials have been unable to secure a deal for property they can afford.

''Today's introduction of this legislation marks the first concrete step in the process of constructing a new elementary school at Incline Village,'' Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said.

Bryan and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., introduced the legislation in the Senate while Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., introduced the same bill in the House providing for the necessary congressional authorization of such a federal land sale.

''I am pleased that our efforts on the federal level will help make this new elementary school a reality for Incline Village students,'' Reid said.

The undeveloped wooded lot, currently part of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, is located near the Incline Village High School behind a shopping center off Highway 28 at the corner of Village Boulevard and Northwood Boulevard.

''Overwhelming local support from Incline Village and the Washoe County School District has been instrumental in helping move this process forward,'' Gibbons said Wednesday.

The value of the land will be appraised over the next two months and the proceeds will be used by the Forest Service to purchase other environmentally sensitive land in the Tahoe basin, the lawmakers said.

But neither officials for the school district nor aides to the lawmakers said they could estimate the price of the sale.

Forest Service officials in Reno had no immediate comment and agency officials at Lake Tahoe did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

David Lemmon, Bryan's press secretary, said the Nevada lawmakers do not expect any opposition to the land transfer. And Robert Uithoven, an aide to Gibbons, said they had been working with the Forest Service and were anticipating the agency's support.

The current school built in 1964 is the only elementary school available to residents of the affluent Lake Tahoe community.

A modular addition added in 1994 to make room for more students is at capacity and sixth graders already are being shipped to the local middle school, unlike other schools in Washoe County.

''It is clear the current elementary school is shortchanging not only the students but the entire community and the construction of a new school will give the students the kind of facility to help them excel,'' Bryan said.

Lemmon said the property has been zoned for use only as a school and that helped keep the value of the property down.

Furthermore, the bill specifies the land must be used for an elementary school and has a reversion clause so that the property would go back to the Forest Service if a school is not built, school district officials said.

Steve Williams, the school planner and government affairs representative for the school district, said the soonest a school could be built in Incline Village and opened would be 2002.

It is impossible to estimate the value of the land, he said.

''We pay all kinds of prices for property in the Truckee Meadows. We get some for free. We pay typical residential prices, say $50,000 an acre for property. There's really not any rule of thumb. Every site is different,'' Williams said.

''And Incline is a whole unique animal.''