Court rules against petition calling for Council pay cuts

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 | 9:38 a.m.

Elected officials in Boulder City will keep their current salaries for at least another year, thanks in part to a ruling Thursday in Clark County District Court.

District Judge Kathy Hardcastle denied a petition by former Councilman Bill Smith that asked the court to enact a voter-led initiative from the June election. The initiative would have cut pay in half for elected officials.

Though it received a majority of votes in the election, it wasn't enough to top a competing question.

Smith conceded the issue Thursday, more than five months after the polls closed. Still, he said he is confident he can get the signatures to put the same question on the ballot in November 2002.

In the latest legal ruling on the issue, which has pitted Smith against the rest of the City Council as far back as June 2000, Hardcastle ruled that Smith's initiative conflicted with a second initiative placed on the ballot by other council members. Therefore, according to state law, the question receiving more votes -- the council's -- prevailed.

It didn't matter, Hardcastle said, that Smith's initiative also received a majority of votes, as his plan received less votes than the council's.

Hardcastle's was the third such ruling. City attorney Dave Olsen and then the state attorney general's office ruled similarly earlier this year.

Smith has argued unsuccessfully that the ballots did not clearly state that the two questions were in conflict. If the conflict was clear, voters would have approved one initiative, not both, Smith said. He blames the council for intentionally clouding the issue.

Both initiatives amended the charter to prevent the council from voting itself raises without first standing for re-election. But Smith's initiative would have also cut auto and health benefits, reducing annual council benefits by $11,400. The council earns a base pay of $10,700. The mayor earns slightly more at $13,200.

The pay conflict began in June 2000, when the council approved raises that would have allowed Mayor Bob Ferraro and Councilmen Joe Hardy and Bryan Nix to receive increases halfway through their elected terms -- $8,000 for the mayor and $5,000 for the councilmen. That move, illegal elsewhere in the state, moved Smith to bring charges of unethical behavior. He led a petition that eventually killed the raises on the April ballot.

On Thursday, however, the victory was Olsen's. "I'm tickled pink," he said.