In Boulder City, two officials arouse ire from new sources

By Mike Trask

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Small-town politics in Boulder City get stranger by the day. The latest town gossip involves allegations against the city clerk and a city councilwoman.

Neither allegation will result in charges.

Joe Roche, a member of the committee writing an argument opposing a proposed special tax to support Boulder City Hospital, filed a police report last month claiming City Clerk Pam Malmstrom had broken election law by appointing his committee without consulting the City Council.

The Clark County district attorney’s office has declined to file charges.

In another incident, a city employee complained that City Councilwoman Linda Strickland had broken local laws.

Strickland prepared a DVD of clips of previous meetings in preparation for an August meeting. She then asked Roy Theiss, the studio coordinator for the city’s television station, to play the disc at the meeting. The DVD, Strickland said, was meant to “call the city manager on the carpet” for not following a directive issued earlier in the year by council.

Theiss played the DVD and then filed a complaint with the city attorney’s office against Strickland, claiming the elected official violated the city charter by giving him orders.

The city attorney’s office forwarded the matter to the state attorney general’s office, which declined to pursue that case.

Strickland and Councilman Travis Chandler were the targets of a recall campaign this year.

The recall proponents did not collect enough signatures to force a special election. However, the signature collectors have said they plan to sue in District Court.

The attorney general ruled only people who voted in the elections won by Chandler and Strickland could sign the petitions. Recall proponents maintain all registered voters should have been able to sign.

• • •

Chandler and Strickland spent Wednesday in Salinas, Calif., touring a trash-to-engery plant similar to one proposed for Boulder City.

They were joined by City Manager Vicki Mayes and Scott Hansen, public works director, along with two representatives of the Southern Nevada Health District.

“It gave us an opportunity to look at it and make some assessments,” Strickland said. “It gave us some good ideas.”

Entrepreneur Mike Little has proposed a small plant in Boulder City. Trash can be mechanically digested into compost that produces methane gas, which, in turn, can fuel a power generator.

The City Council will discuss the trip during a meeting next month.

Boulder City’s small landfill is nearly full, making the plant a desirable alternative to building another landfill.

Chandler has asked staff to prepare a request for bid proposals. The city cannot give Little a contract to run his plant without calling for competitive bids. Several companies across the country are at various stages of developing small trash-to-energy plants.

“This is something I think we can actually do in Boulder City,” Strickland said. “I think I saw the future out there. I think I saw something that will be spreading throughout the United States.”

• • •

Boulder City today hosts the annual reunion of 31ers, but the name is something of a misnomer.

The 31ers were people who arrived in Boulder City in 1931 to build Hoover Dam.

The last 31er living in Boulder City died last year. Lee Tilman was 94 and is remembered as a great storyteller, having appeared on dozens of televisions shows and written a 300-page oral history of the dam with town historian Dennis McBride.

Organizers have revised club standards to keep tradition alive and now count anyone who has lived in Boulder City for 31 years a 31er.

There are still a few former dam workers living in the Las Vegas Valley and throughout the country.

“They are all in their late 90s and 100s,” said Patty Sullivan, one of the group’s organizers. “Now we have all the children who came and lived here with their parents. They are all in their 70s.”