Landfill sparks debate at council

By Cassie Tomlin

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 | midnight

A City Council discussion about hiring a consultant to study operations at the municipal landfill turned heated last Tuesday and ended in a 3-2 vote canceling an outside evaluation the council had agreed to earlier this year.

Instead, the public works department and city attorney's office will do the evaluation, working with the firm that is drafting the applications to the Southern Nevada Health District for permits to expand the landfill.

The decision came after Councilwoman Linda Strickland, backed by Councilman Travis Chandler, asked why the city had yet to bring in a landfill expert to dissect Boulder Disposal Inc.'s work at the site. She played video of the Feb. 12 meeting during which Mayor Roger Tobler had moved and the council had voted unanimously to hire an outside consultant to examine the landfill operations.

City Manager Vicki Mayes said a discrepancy between the motion as it was made and the motion as it was recorded was to blame. The motion on the record called for an outside consultant to assist the city in negotiating the landfill's contract.

She said after City Clerk Pamella Malmstrom's minutes were unanimously approved by the City Council, that motion became the official directive.

"I understand that many times, the discussion goes on for hours, and on that night it did, and so many times what is written in this motion is subsequent of all discussion," she said.

She told Strickland later, "Whatever you wanted the motion to be, frankly, the minutes are official directive."

Strickland said on Aug. 28 that she had read the minutes and assumed her intent was still considered, but in the end felt Mayes decided against hiring a consultant without informing the council.

During the meeting, she told Mayes, "I wonder why it is that if at some point in time you made some unilateral decision a consultant wasn't needed, why (the council) didn't get something back? It doesn't mean you can ignore it or it tell us you're changing the directive in some way."

The city has for more than a year discussed the possible redrafting of its contract with the landfill operator, City Council members said. Boulder Disposal, is scheduled to sign a five-year contract extension with the city in October.

Steve Kalish, Boulder Disposal's president and chief operating officer, did not return phone calls.

Strickland said she wanted an outside landfill expert to determine whether the contract is being followed so that both parties could correct any problems.

She said without the study, the city and Boulder Disposal will continue with the same contract, which she called horrible, for five more years.

"I just don't know what we have out there," she said. "I don't know if we as a staff know what we have out there. We have many times discussed how it requires special expertise."

Instead, the council decided to analyze operations in house.

Tobler, Pacini and Councilwoman Andrea Anderson, who voted for the motion, expressed concern about paying another consultant, and Mayes said the study was something the city's public works department and City Attorney Dave Olsen could handle.

Strickland disagreed.

"To think that our city staff and our city manager and our city attorney can do the contract analysis is probably a bit naive in the sense that we had the city attorney look it over, and it is an absolute mess, and it's still a mess," she said. "We have admitted that we have mismanaged, so to think that we are now going to somehow have this vision to do this, I don't understand where this knowledge is coming from."

Chandler said after finding the minutes didn't match what he thought he'd voted on that night, he would begin reviewing minutes again.

"I'm extremely unhappy and extremely dismayed that our directions can be thwarted by hiding behind transcriptions," he said. "This is a violation of what I thought was clear direction."

In the discussion's final stretch, Mayes said Strickland wasn't motivated by smooth landfill relationships, but by politics.

"I think we need to lay out what this is all about in my opinion," she said. "It's not about me following staff directive, not about the fact that we need a consultant to come in and look, this is a political position taken, and it's been the same one taken all along. Councilwoman Strickland has wanted to find our landfill operator in breach, so this isn't about me, it's about a difference of opinion among you elected officials."

She said because the council publicly stated Boulder Disposal was in breach of contract, the company was deterred from discussing and negotiating — echoing earlier statements by Tobler and Pacini.

"When we speak about breaches and take that kind of threatening posturing, then the people we're working with are going to lawyer up, and that's what's happened here," she said.

Strickland denied any political motivation and said she has only tried to prevent future contractual woes.

"Despite what you just said, this was really about whether or not you followed a directive," she said. "We have in my opinion been kept in dark about things you've been directed to do, and you've been making these decisions on your own. My whole intent was never to find the contract in default. It was to assure the one we have in the next five years is consistent with operations there.

"I like the deflection, but in my mind it doesn't fly."

Olsen halted the discussion when he warned Strickland she was discussing character and potentially violating the Nevada Open Meeting Law.

"If you're going to sit here and attack (Mayes) for not doing something you think she should have done, I'm warning you, you are violating the Open Meeting Law," he said.

Strickland replied before Pacini called to end debate and vote: "Then I would expect, Attorney Olsen, that you would have given us that caveat in the beginning."

Cassie Tomlin is a reporter for the Home News. She can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].