It seems almost everyone wants to be a millionaire

Brian Wargo, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, May 12, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

Dear Boulder City,

I've never been to your fair city but am interested in buying a home there. Is it true the city might sell some land and make me an instant millionaire?

A future resident

That's the gist of e-mails and phone calls from across the country that have inundated City Hall within the last week after a proposed ballot measure backed by some Boulder City residents got national attention.

An Associated Press story detailing how Boulder City's 15,000 residents might be sitting on a jackpot was carried by media throughout the United States and on the Internet.

Proponents are touting the measure as netting every man, woman and unborn child in Boulder City between $750,000 and $3 million, depending on the amount of land sold and its price. The ballot measure lists the qualifying cutoff date to live in Boulder City as March 31, 2006.

One Washington state man wrote city officials asking whether residents would profit from the sale of 167 square miles of desert:

"If so, how long are you required to be a resident to obtain the proceeds? The wheels are turning, and I am considering the purchase of a home to retire on."

Boulder City officials say they've had enough of the attention the community has received about the proposed ballot measure. They want to put a stop to it, and today they will hold a rare press conference, at which they will reiterate their opposition to the citizen-sponsored measure and the unlikely legal prospect that residents could become instant millionaires.

"We are getting a huge number of calls coming in every day from people all over the country about how we can get in on the million dollars," says Mayor Robert Ferraro, who himself has fielded phone calls and e-mails. "I don't think it helps this community at all. It makes us look like we are a bunch of country bumpkins."

Press conferences are rare in Boulder City, the last one three years ago, when city officials debunked a pamphlet mailed to voters that described one house littered with junk and junked vehicles as "a clan of micro-terrorists." They held the conference to reassure residents that it had nothing to do with foreign terrorism or national security.

Now, officials are dealing with what they consider more negative publicity.

City Clerk Pam Malmstrom has gotten a dozen calls from Kansas, Oregon, California and other states. Many were from land investors and developers looking to purchase the 107,000 acres that could be for sale under the ballot initiative.

City Attorney Dave Olsen says he has averaged about three to five phone calls a day. Even several former residents have called to determine whether they're eligible for a cut of any land sale because either they still own land there or were longtime residents, he says.

"I think it's kind of sad that people are being drawn to this in this fashion," Olsen said. "I am not saying it's the media's fault. It has become national news primarily because of the potential money involved. I treated this as a big joke in the beginning. I am not treating it as a joke now."

The ballot measure is being pushed by the Coalition to Protect the Future of Boulder City, a group that's opposed to developing city-owned lands. The group argues that if residents don't want to stand up and protect Eldorado Valley, they should at least profit from it. The group has about 550 of the 692 signatures required to get the measure on the ballot.

City officials argue that about 85,000 acres of the 107,000 that the ballot measure identifies as being potentially sold can't be developed as they are set aside as a desert tortoise preserve. At the most, 10,300 acres could be sold for development, but residents couldn't profit from a sale, they say.

Despite the long odds of residents profiting, that hasn't stopped national media from interviewing city officials about the proposal. Community Development Director Brok Armantrout has been on radio programs in Dallas and Minneapolis, where hosts have jokingly asked him how he will spend his millions.

"I told them I wanted to buy a Ferrari," Armantrout says. "My three-cylinder Geo Metro is not a speed demon."