WEST WENDOVER, Nev. — Prostitution may be legalized in this small border town if a councilwoman has her way.

Lore Cook began looking into legalization after fielding requests by two people wondering about establishing brothels in this city of almost 5,000.

Lacking the support of the other four council members, Cook is asking voters whether they want to change a city ordinance to make prostitution legal. Under Nevada law, local governments have a choice on banning it.

The earliest the issue could be on a regular election ballot is next year. But Cook is exploring the possibility of a special election to get the measure on the ballot sooner.

The proposal has not been well-received. Last week nearly 100 people attended a public hearing saying they want to keep brothels out. The nearest bordellos are 50 miles away in Wells or more than 100 miles away in Elko or Carlin.

West Wendover’s casinos are legal and obvious to patrons. But prostitution, if it exists in this town on the Utah border, has remained an underground industry.

“If it’s there, it’s very quiet,” said Lori Stappenbeck, a clerk in the city’s justice court. “We’ve always heard it’s been here. It’s nothing personally I’ve ever seen.”

In her two years as a clerk and in five years before that as a secretary for the police department, she says she has not seen one case of prostitution. Neither has Sylvia Medina in her two years as a municipal court clerk, nor Georgina LaCombe in her 19 years as a judge in West Wendover.

Cook, who runs a shop that sells a small amount of adult magazines and videos, says prostitution does indeed exist in West Wendover.

“It’s here,” she said. “Just because they’re not waving banners doesn’t mean it’s not here.”

The councilwoman said each week she refers three or four customers, most of whom are from the Salt Lake City area, to brothels in Wells.

Legalizing brothels would at least address certain health issues, she said, by requiring prostitutes to get regular checkups. The city would gain revenue from special permits required of brothels.

But no one else on the five-member council appears to back brothels. Councilman Joel Murphy said the city is making strides toward becoming a community of “family values” and that the casinos would suffer in a city that is home to bordellos.

Murphy thinks brothels do not bring down incidences of rape and sexually transmitted diseases, nor do they make money for the state.

Legalizing brothels is not popular with the neighbors to the east, either.

Wendover, Utah, population 1,537, is just down the road along the main strip, Wendover Boulevard.

“The bottom line is, I’m against it and our council’s against it,” Mayor Steve Perry said.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.