By Jack Johnson, Boulder City Review

The city has opened dialogue with a California-based company that wants to take over the terms of a lease agreement that SolBio Energy has not been able to honor.

If successful, the deal could bring the city about $3 million in lease revenue and prevent layoffs and the elimination of non-essential services.

SolBio Energy, a Canadian-based startup, signed a lease agreement with the city in December to build a 2,200-acre photovoltaic solar power plant in Eldorado Valley.

SolBio was not able to secure financing for its initial lease payment of $1 million which was due in February.

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By Jack Johnson, Boulder City Review

A Clark County District Court judge decided Sept. 8 that an initiative giving Boulder City voters the ability to limit the number of golf courses the city can own will remain on the ballot in November.

The initiative aims to change policy so the city can only own one 18-hole golf course. It currently owns two.

After a group of residents gathered signatures to have the question placed on the ballot, City Attorney Dave Olsen hired law firm Lionel, Sawyer & Collins to examine the legality of the ballot initiative, and then filed suit to keep the question off the ballot.

Five residents who circulated the petition were named in the suit, but only four chose to fight it.

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By Jack Johnson, Boulder City Review

City Manager Vicki Mayes’ husband registered his 2010 Nissan GT-R Premium sports car in Nevada Aug. 19, but a special city council meeting will be held to address the possible legal and ethical violations associated with the vehicle’s former out-of-state registration.

The Mayeses received criticism after Vicki Mayes drove Denny Mayes’ new car to work at City Hall a few times, because it had Montana license plates, and the Mayeses live in Boulder City and do not own property in Montana.

By registering the new vehicle earlier this year to the Montana-based limited liability company, Amayesd, Denny Mayes said he saved about $4,200 in Nevada sales tax. Montana has no state sales tax.

He also did not pay about $1,400 in Nevada Department of Motor Vehicle registration fees, he said.

Mayes’ revelations came during an interview with the Boulder City Review on Friday.

The majority of the Nevada’s sales tax and registration fee goes toward things like schools and roads.

Many people from all over the country establish companies in sales tax-free states like Montana and Oregon so they can save thousands of dollars when they register new vehicles, mostly expensive RVs.

The Nissan’s retail price tag tops $80,000 but the Mayeses said they traded in a Porsche Vicki used to drive.

“It’s an ongoing problem” in Nevada, according to Paulina Oliver, a tax manager with the Nevada Department of Taxation.

Though the practice is legal in Montana, according to the Department of Taxation and the Department of Motor Vehicles, in Nevada, it is not.

“For a private person, if you live here and you work here you have to register your car here,” DMV spokesman Kevin Malone said. “And if you form a company in another state that’s no excuse.”

Though the Department of Taxation, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Las Vegas Township Constable’s office — who recently launched the Fair Share registration enforcement program — said it is illegal to register one’s car out of state if the person does not live there, the Mayeses maintain that the vehicle’s registration was legal in Nevada.

“I legally registered my car out of state … just like thousands of Nevadans do every day,” Denny Mayes said.

The Mayeses said upon setting up the company with the Montana law firm, Bennett Law Office, they were told the registration was legal in Nevada. They also said they consulted a local attorney last week who told them they did not break any Nevada laws.

City Attorney Dave Olsen also told the Boulder City Review he thought it was legal, and Vicki Mayes said numerous attorneys have told her informally the out-of-state registration was legal.

According to Vicki Mayes, the agencies who said her husband’s act is illegal don’t know what they are talking about.

“They’re telling you general guidelines,” she told the Boulder City Review. “Two attorneys told us it was legal.”

But upon repeated questioning, the Mayeses would not reveal who the Nevada attorney they recently consulted was, so the attorney could be asked exactly how the registration was legal. And while Bennett Law Office did not return phone calls, its website claims “virtually every state” has statutes that can make the Montana registration legal.

Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said he knows who the local mystery lawyer the Mayeses consulted is, and said the lawyer is someone who is respected in the community, and who would give the Mayeses’ an honest opinion.

Finn said Vicki Mayes told him about her husband’s registration a couple months ago, just in case her husband were to be stopped by an officer, but said her husband had the paperwork proving the car was legally registered to the limited-liability company.

“She felt, and I truly believe her, that it was legally registered under the LLC,” he said.

Finn said he wasn’t too familiar with how the out-of-state LLC registration worked, but believed Mayes that it was legal.

“I’m familiar that once you move here you have 60 days to register,” he said. “As far as the nuances with another state, and you have an LLC and it’s registered there, I wasn’t as familiar with those.”

He said he wasn’t even aware there might be a problem until an officer approached him after the Aug. 10 City Council meeting and told him it was illegal. He said this was the only contact he had with any officer about the issue and gave no directive.

But after looking into it a little further, Finn said he’s still not sure whether the registration was legal.

“On its face, it appears that it is illegal,” he said. However, “I wouldn’t say it’s a gray area, but there’s enough confusion.”

Finn said it would have been best to let the court decide, but it never came to that.

“If any of my officers felt it was a violation, it would have been well within their rights to pull them over, cite them, and let Judge (Victor) Miller figure it out,” he said. But, “If the vehicle’s been around town for several months and officers haven’t stopped her, then obviously they aren’t that concerned about it.”

According to the Mayeses, it is not a legal issue, it is an ethical issue. They agree, Vicki Mayes being a public official, it looked bad to register a car out of state and not pay taxes. But the Mayeses maintain the car was not registered out of state in an effort to dodge Nevada sales tax.

Denny Mayes said he set up the limited-liability company after he took a trip Montana and decided it would be a nice place to start a business, possibly after his wife retires in a couple years. But what this business might be, neither of them could say.

This idea for a business, Denny Mayes said, came around the same time he got the itch for a new car. He said he was told by someone — he couldn’t say who — that it might help the company to own an asset.

“It just coincided into the same time as getting a car,” he said. “And they said that is a good investment into your LLC.”

The Mayeses said they did not know that Bennett Law Office is one of Montana’s more popular registration service law offices, and has helped thousands of people from all over the country avoid paying their home state’s sales tax.

Denny Mayes said he simply found out about Bennett Law Office by word of mouth when he was in Montana, though he couldn’t say from whom.

The Mayeses said they weren’t even familiar with the practice of folks going to Montana to evade sales tax.

Vicki Mayes said she told her husband it wasn’t a good idea when he was thinking about doing it, because it might look bad, and he said he didn’t listen to her.

“To tell you the truth, I’m old enough to should have known, and I should have listened,” he said. “I did a dumb ass thing and now my wife’s paying for it.”

With the vehicle now registered in Nevada, there won’t be any citations issued. And the Mayeses are no longer risking fines by the Department of Taxation, if it were in fact determined to be illegal. But there are still some questions that need answering, members of the city council say.

Councilwoman Linda Strickland said she sent a letter to Vicki Mayes with some questions — asking where the vehicle was purchased, who was on the title, when it entered the state, who the officers and directors of the company were, etc. — which she asked to be answered in writing. Mayes did not answer.

“I haven’t gotten the cooperation that I’ve been hoping to get,” Strickland said.

The Mayeses told the Boulder City Review that Amayesd owns the vehicle, it was purchased in February and only Denny Mayes is named on the limited liability company.

However, upon repeated questioning, Denny Mayes would not say in which state the vehicle was purchased, only saying it was purchased out of state. And at one point last week, Vicki Mayes claimed she didn’t even know in which state the vehicle was purchased.

“I would think that it would be important to be just as up front and open about it,” Strickland said. “People make mistakes, but (withholding information) seems to compound it.”

Strickland said she requested for a discussion of the registration to be placed on a future City Council agenda. But that likely won’t happen, because Mayor Roger Tobler plans to have a special City Council meeting to discuss it instead.

This meeting, he said, will likely take place in a couple weeks, before the next Sept. 14 council meeting.

“(Strickland) asked for it to be placed on the agenda item,” he said. “I would rather have it taken care of sooner.”

While Tobler also said he doesn’t know all the details, and doesn’t know what will happen at the special meeting, he is concerned because the community is concerned, not because he believes Vicki Mayes’ character is flawed.

“Her husband made a bad judgment call and he’s taken care of it,” Tobler said. “Personally, I don’t think it has eroded my confidence in Vicki … the most important thing is we know it’s not going to happen again.”

Council members Cam Walker and Travis Chandler also said the out-of-state registration doesn’t look good for Vicki Mayes, but they need more information before they can render a solid opinion.

Councilman Duncan McCoy said the attorneys can argue about the legality of the registration. He doesn’t know the answer. But there is one thing he does know.

“You can hope and wish for perfect performance on the part of the people you work with and the people who work for you, but what you get is a human being and human beings make mistakes,” he said.

Mayes said that even though she hopes to resolve the matter, she realizes it will be difficult resolve any damage to her public image.

“I understand as a public official that any action of mine or my family is scrutinized by the public for adherence to the highest ethical standards,” she said in an Aug. 19 release. “I also understand that appearance of impropriety can be as detrimental to the public trust as impropriety itself.”

By Jack Johnson, Boulder City Review

When City Manager Vicki Mayes occasionally drove a new car to work, some started wondering about the 2010 Nissan GT-R sports vehicle’s Montana license plate.

This is because Mayes and husband Denny Mayes, a retired city landscaping supervisor, both live in Boulder City and do not, Vicki Mayes said, own property in Montana. A Nevada state law says that if you live here, you must have your car registered here.

The sleek, white machine is registered to the Montana limited-liability company, Amayesd. Vicki Mayes said it is a company her husband set up after they took a trip to Montana. They decided it might be a nice place to spend summers, she said, somewhere he could have a business.

“He was just looking ahead,” she said.

Currently, there is no operating business, she said, and they don’t even know what the business might yet be.

Due to Nevada’s relatively high registration fees, many residents save money by illegally registering their vehicles in another state, the Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Kevin Malone said.

“For a private person, if you live here and you work here, you have to register your car here,” he said.

But even if there were an operating business, Malone said, it wouldn’t change anything.

“If you form a company in another state, that’s no excuse,” he said.

Malone said there is a type of registration out-of-state businesses can get, called an apportioned registration, where the business pays for how much time the vehicle spends on Nevada roads.

But if Denny Mayes’ registration was apportioned, it would say it on the plate, and it does not.

Mayes said that her personal vehicle, an Audi SUV, is registered in Nevada.

And “as far as she knows,” Amayesd is not her company, and that the registration is entirely her husband’s business decision, which she believes to be legal.

“There are exceptions under the laws,” she said.

City Attorney Dave Olsen also said he was “vaguely aware” of the vehicle’s registration, and also thought it was legal.

“As far as I can tell it’s not that big of a deal,” he said. “If the corporation owns the asset, that’s all there is to it.”

Boulder City Police officer Craig Tomao said the police department was also aware of the Nissan’s Montana plates, but did nothing.

“(Chief Thomas Finn) knew about it, everybody knew about it,” Tomao said.

Finn, who works under Mayes, did not return phone calls by press time.

Though 2009 legislation gave the state’s constable offices the authority to issue citations for registration violations, according to Boulder Township Constable Jim Reed, the Boulder Township Constable has not done so.

“We haven’t really been going out and taking an active enforcement role. We’ve been leaving that to the Boulder City Police Department,” he said.

The Boulder City Police Department recently almost lost two officers to budget cuts, if the Police Protective Association did not agree to wage concessions.

Vicki Mayes said the cuts were an adjustment for the state’s declining tax revenues.

If the Nissan was purchased at its Kelley Blue Book value of about $83,000, the registration cost would have been about $1,500 in Nevada.

This is money Malone said goes toward the Nevada’s schools and roads.

Mayes could have avoided paying $6,700 in Nevada sales tax if the car was purchased in Montana, according to a KLAS-TV news report Tuesday night.

Mayes told the Boulder City Review on Wednesday she did not know which state the car was purchased in.

According to Tomao, who also serves as the vice president of the association, “I have to do it, you have to do it, she should have to do it. The state of Nevada is in a state of peril. It needs the money.”

Mayes, who made a base salary of about $180,000 last year, said she realizes that this may not look good.

“I understand what the public perception is,” she said. “My husband understands what the public perception is. He was a public employee, but this was a business decision he made. As far as I know, I’m not a part of it.”

By Jack Johnson, Boulder City Review

A few concerned citizens met at City Hall on April 29 to turn in a signed ballot initiative that could potentially change the way the city attorney assumes office.

Once validated, the 869 signatures, collected in 38 days by 30 residents sitting out in front of the Boulder Dam Credit Union and by going door to door, will give voters the opportunity to change the city attorney’s position from being appointed by the City Council (like the City Clerk and the City Manager) to being elected by the people.

The reasons behind the members of the group wanting to change the city attorney from being appointed to elected vary from the simple belief that more elected officials are better than less elected officials, to issues with city attorney Dave Olsen himself. But the common thread is they feel the office should have more accountability to the voters, rather than the City Council.

According to group member Dan Jensen, with an appointed city attorney, the City Council acts as an unsavory “layer” in between the influential position and the people. Having an elected city attorney, he says, “gives people more of an opportunity to have a direct say in the government.”

“I’m just in favor of the more you get people involved, the better,” he said.

Though Jensen said he has never met Olsen and has no personal feelings about him one way or the other, group member Nancy Nolette certainly does. She is upset about a number of things, but mainly about Olsen filing a lawsuit in 2006, stopping a ballot initiative to sell off Eldorado Valley land and give the money to residents, after it received enough signatures, because he said the residents did not have the right to do so (the Nevada Supreme Court sided with Olsen).

“This city attorney has been non-responsive to the city of Boulder City,” she said. Adding, “His advice is twisted to fit whatever the City Council and the city manager want to accomplish, and I think he needs to held accountable to the people.”

Part of the argument centers on just whom the city attorney is supposed to be accountable to.

According to the initiative group, the city attorney is supposed to be accountable to the people of Boulder City, because they are Boulder City. In a press release, the group cites Article I, Section I of the Boulder City Charter which reads: “… the inhabitants of (Boulder City) … shall remain, be and constitute a body politic and corporate by the name and style of ‘Boulder City.’ ”

Olsen, however, draws a line between his allegiance to the corporation and the citizens.

“The main responsibility of the city attorney is to look after the municipal corporation,” he said, “to make sure city council or citizens don’t do anything to jeopardize (it).”

Olsen said he does this when he carries out his job duties, which are giving legal advice to the City Council and prosecuting misdemeanor offenses in municipal court.

According to elected Sparks city attorney Chet Adams — who, along with Reno’s city attorney, is one of only two elected city attorneys in Nevada — the question of exactly whom city attorney is accountable to is a tricky question that seminars even exist to address.

“Irrespective of whether you are elected or appointed, you do have an obligation to represent the city council,” Adams said. But, “Your lines of allegiance pretty much depend on what you’re being asked to do.”

Adams said those lines can be blurred when you are appointed by the same people you are advising — in the past, he has been asked to clear charges of council members’ sons after they had been arrested, to which he said he would not.

“If I was in an appointed position, that would be very uncomfortable for me to be able to do that,” he said.

But Olsen, who has been Boulder City’s city attorney since 1999, says it wouldn’t matter to him if he were elected or not.

According to Olsen, “I don’t do that job any better because I’m appointed or I don’t think I would do it any worse (if elected) … I think I would take the same approach.” But, he adds, “It would be kind of a luxury to look some of the city council members in the face and say ‘Hey, take a hike, I don’t answer to you.’ ”

But Boulder City voters may not even get the chance to see Olsen in an elected position. If the charter is changed, rather than running, he said he would likely retire early. But that wouldn’t happen right away.

Because the change would be an amendment to the city charter, it must be approved by voters in two consecutive elections — once in the November general election, and again in the June 2011 municipal election. In either election, if voters do not approve changing the charter, the question dies. If the charter is ammended, Olsen said, the first election likely wouldn’t be held until the next municipal election in June 2013.

The reason the group began collecting signatures to get the question on the ballot in the first place is because they proposed it to the City Council in late 2009, but placing it on the ballot was rejected by a majority vote.

According to Councilman Duncan McCoy, the city attorney position should not be elected because, rather than the rigorous hiring process that currently exists for the city attorney, the position would be open up to anyone.

“Worst case scenario,” he said, “we get a beginner in municipal law.”

Not only does the possibility exist of a charismatic, unqualified candidate winning over the voters, but once the city attorney wins the seat, according to McCoy, in absence of the City Council’s goals, evaluations, hiring and firing, the city attorney wouldn’t have to answer to anyone for four years.

“He could go fishing in between elections,” McCoy said.

Councilman Travis Chandler, who was part of the council’s minority vote to get the question on the ballot, felt so strongly about the city attorney position being changed from appointed to elected that he even helped the group gather signatures for the initiative (along with a few other code amendment initiatives, such as limiting the debt the city can incur without voter approval, reducing the number of golf courses the city can own and setting term limits for committee members).

“When you have a client, you always argue in favor of the client,” he said, “The legalities, the protection of the pub interest, it’s really secondary.” Adding, “I don’t even think people appreciate the number of different occasions (Olsen has) come out and acted against the public’s interest … and end of the day, why shouldn’t people be able to choose their highly paid public servants?”

While the initiative only needed to be signed by 15 percent of the 4264 people who voted in the last election — 642 — the 869 signatures gathered showed there is at least some support for the initiative.

According to Chandler, “You’d be surprised. From what I’ve been told, up until last Thursday, it was the most popular petition.”

But just because the group gathered enough signatures, doesn’t mean it will fare as well on election day.

According to McCoy, “I think you could get signatures in Boulder City for almost anything you wanted to get signatures on. That doesn’t mean there’s enough support for this or any other hypothetical thing you can think of.”

So whether people are out for Olsen, they simply believe having an elected city attorney would work better, they can be easily talked into signing something they don’t understand, or all of the above, changing the city’s charter is an important decision that could have unforeseen consequences.

According to Eldon Clothier, who has seen few major charter changes in his more than 20 years on the city’s Charter Commission, “When you make a change in the charter, it doesn’t necessarily make a change that you want it to make.” Adding, “It will backfire if we get Dave Olsen out, and we get someone we can’t get out … it doesn’t matter who it is, whoever we put in there, we just tied our own hands.”

Of course, there would always the option of a costly recall.

But at least now, the wheels are in motion, and if all the signatures are deemed valid, the voters will have a chance to be heard in November. According to Olsen, “Regardless of what happens, the people of Boulder City will get what they want.”