BEATTY -- It was fireworks night at the March 11 Beatty Town Advisory Board meeting.

The board agreed to split the $10,000 cost of 4th of July fireworks with the volunteer fire department, then supplied some of its own in the form of tension and conflict between board members.

The opening salvo came when Teresa Sullivan disagreed with Bert Bertram's statement that the town's master plan process was "in a state of flux right now ... trying to integrate members of the open-space committee, the master plan, and Nye County Planning."

Sullivan said the way she understood the situation, the master planning process could continue and that it would come together with the open-space plan in the end.

Town secretary Janet Rogers interjected that planner Cheryl Beeman had asked for the month off from the Beatty project because she was nearing completion of Amargosa Valley's plan.

Tension once again surfaced during consideration of the "consent items" on the agenda, which includes the signing of town vouchers. LaRene Younghans asked that a voucher from the fire department be pulled because it did not have Fire Chief Jim Benshoof's signature on it. The board had previously established the policy of requiring two signatures on vouchers from all organizations.

Chairman Mike Lasorsa, the town's only paid fireman, then read minutes from years before in which the board voted to allow the town secretary to act as secretary for the fire department. Rogers also said she needed clarification, since some items -- utility bills the only ones mentioned -- did not require signatures.

Younghans said there was no need to discuss the matter since the board had established the policy requiring the signatures. The board then approved all the other items on the consent agenda, minus the fire department voucher.

The grand finale of the evening's fireworks came at the end of the meeting, when Sullivan called Lasorsa to task for comments of his quoted in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article on Ed Ringle's "El Sueno" project.

Lasorsa was quoted as chairman of the town board in the remarks, and Sullivan said the board had not discussed the project and Lasorsa did not represent the board and could not speak for them on the matter.

Lasorsa said he spoke as a 30-year resident of the community and not as chairman of the town board, and that he had said other things that were positive that the reporter did not quote.

When Sullivan said he needed to correct the remarks, Lasorsa said he had not said anything untrue, and it did not need correction. He also asked why she had not approached him personally about the matter before the meeting. She said she felt it needed to be brought out in the public forum.

In the middle of this discussion, board member Joe White quietly got out of his seat and left the building in apparent disgust.

Earlier in the meeting the board agreed to contribute up to $5,000 to help send Beatty High School's Family Career and Community Leaders of America to the organization's national competition and leadership conference in Nashville, Tenn.

Younghans grilled the group thoroughly concerning their own personal and group efforts to raise money on their own. Sponsor Julie Moen said the students and their parents were personally paying half of the cost, and they will be holding various fundraisers as a group, just as they have in the past.

Several attempts at motions to provide the funding brought up procedural questions until finally the board agreed to provide $5,000 up front with the understanding the group would return any of that amount not needed as a result of its fundraising activities.

Sullivan, whose daughter is a participant in the program, abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote.