Boulder City voting will be no cakewalk

Voters in other cities should be able to breeze through their tiny general election ballots, but Boulder City residents can expect to spend a bit more time in the voting booth on Tuesday.

The Boulder City ballot includes one City Council race and six ballot questions on a range of topics, all but one of them related to proposed amendments to the city charter and with many of them designed to bring the charter into alignment with state law.

Two of the six questions are on the ballot for the second time, since all changes to the charter require passage in two consecutive elections. Two others are up for the first of what could be two appearance on the ballot.

Early voting lasts through today. Tuesday is Election Day.

Here's how the questions break down:

• Question 1, which voters first approved during the November 2008 general election, asks whether the charter should be amended to make it gender neutral.

• Question 2, also approved last year, asks whether the City Council should be barred from meeting behind closed doors to discuss the possible firing of a city officer. The Nevada open meeting law requires such meetings to be open to the public.

Questions 3, 4 and 5 would also amend the charter, but only if passed on Tuesday and again during the November 2010 general election.

• Question 3 asks whether a utility corridor annexed by the city in 2008 should be added to the official description of the city's boundaries contained in the charter.

• Question 4 seeks to bring the charter into accordance with state law by adding term limits that restrict a mayor or City Council member to no more than 12 years in office.

• Question 5 would limit votes on expenditures from the city's capital improvement fund to general and special elections only.

State law doesn't allow such advisory questions to be put to voters in the primary.

• Question 6 is the only measure that doesn't involve a housekeeping change to the city charter. If passed on Tuesday, the advisory question could open some vacant city land to geothermal energy research and development.

Already, Boulder City leases a portion of the 167 square miles of empty desert it owns in the Eldorado Valley, south and west of the community, for solar power development.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.