Resident takes fight to Supreme Court

Wednesday, May 11, 2005 | 8:43 a.m.

A Boulder City resident fearful of widespread development is petitioning the state Supreme Court to throw out a June 7 ballot measure that enables the city to sell land around Boulder Creek Golf Course for a 90-home subdivision.

Sherman Rattner served the 100-page plus petition to Boulder City officials on Monday and filed it Tuesday with the Supreme Court in Carson City.

For several weeks, Rattner and the group he co-chairs, the Coalition to Save the Future of Boulder City, have threatened to file a lawsuit to get the measure removed from the ballot. He contends the ballot measure doesn't properly describe the initiative and its ramifications.

City officials said they are following the law and not deceiving the public with the ballot measure. If successful, the city would sell 46.5 acres to a developer to help pay off the $22 million price tag for building the golf course, which continues to lose money.

"We have a war going on between development interests that want to come in here and turn the whole valley into Las Vegas Two," Rattner said Monday. "If we don't draw the line now, it is just a matter of time before the whole town is overrun with development. There is a better way to deal with the golf course fiasco that they created. This is bad planning, bad development and bad economics."

Boulder City is a limited-growth city that allows 120 homes per year and only 30 by a developer. Voters must approve any land sale of 1 acre or more.

Former Councilman Doug Scheppman who helped form a pro ballot-measure committee, Citizens For Fiscal Responsibility, called Rattner a political activist who will do anything to get his point heard. He called it a desperate attempt to derail a ballot measure he thinks will be successful.

"I think voters deserve an opportunity to be heard on this issue," Scheppman said. "What he is saying is absolutely not true," Scheppman said.

"We are only talking about 90 homes and retiring $20 million in debt for the benefit of 15,000 people. This is not an open door for development."

Boulder City Attorney Dave Olsen said Rattner will have a difficult time getting the Supreme Court to throw out the ballot measure, simply because the petition is tardy. Absentee voting by mail has already begun and ballots have been printed and Rattner should have filed the petition weeks ago, he said.

Because Olsen said he was named as party to the lawsuit, the City Council will have to hire an outside law firm to defend the city. Olsen said it would be a conflict for him to represent the city when he is named a party to the case.

"This guy is just having fun at the expense of the taxpayer," Olsen said of Rattner.

The lawsuit includes the Boulder City Council, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax.

Rattner defended his legal filing, saying he's being criticized as a way for the city to cover up its decision to build the golf course and the subsequent losses from the project's lack of success. He said the land sale election will be close and any measure that goes before voters should be accurate and follow the state Constitution.

"They are so desperate they are attacking me personally," Rattner said. "I am not the one who created this fiasco with the golf course. I am not the one who violated the process. I am trying to right a wrong these people have created.

"They are being misleading about the facts, and I am trying to protect this town. I am not the problem. I am the solution."

Rattner said he's not a lawyer but drafted the petition and filed it as quickly as he could. He rates the chances of getting the ballot measure tossed as 50-50.

In November, nearly 53 percent of voters rejected selling the land on the northeast side of the course.

In April the council sought to enhance its chance of passage by setting parameters for selling the land that were not in place for the November election. It allows no more than 90 homes and sets limits on lot sizes.

In his petition, Rattner took aim at the sample ballot and language supporting the land sale. He called the statement "unclear, confusing, misleading and inaccurate." The arguments were drafted by city-appointed committees of proponents and opponents.

Rattner said the sample ballot was inaccurate in claiming 100 percent of the property tax revenue from the 90-home development will stay in the city. Since the property falls in a redevelopment zone, 30 percent of the tax revenue goes to the state and Clark County, Olsen said.

Olsen called the error in the sample ballot language a minor one that wouldn't get the measure off the ballot. He said space limits how much information a ballot measure can contain.

"For the city to spend money defending what they have already admitted are mistakes would be outrageous and unconscionable and an abuse of their authority," Rattner said.

Among other points made in the petition:

Rattner urges the city to sell lots of less than 1 acre it owns in developed areas as a way to generate money to pay off debt.