Nor'Town: Politics in North Las Vegas, Nevada

Man of Reason

In a recent mailer, Councilman William Robinson portrayed himself as the "Voice of Reason for North Las Vegas."

My question is: who are the voices of unreason he's contrasting himself with? Yes, I suppose his opponent, John T. Stephens, would be the obvious target. But the only sign of irrationality I've ever noted from Mr. Stephens was his decision to take on yet another corporate-funded, deeply-entrenched Nor'Town incumbent on the City Council.

Note that Robinson says "for North Las Vegas" instead of "for Ward 2." He's not suggesting, is he, that he's the "Voice of Reason" on the City Council, as opposed to the other voices of unreason and chaos there, is he?

On the other side of the Robertson mailer we find that he has never been afraid to stand up against big developers and casinos." I suppose voting against them is something else entirely.

We also find Robinson rubbing up against the Mayor in one picture and Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins in another. That no doubt is meant to convince us that Mr. Robinson can work with both arch Republicans and uber Democrats, Collins being in the tail end of his tenure as State Democratic chair and Montandon trying to buy a Republican Assembly.

I tried to get a closer look at the picture of Robinson and the Mayor, but darn if something wasn't wrong with the program I was using. There must have been a smudge or something because surely the Mayor wouldn't give Mr. Robinson the old "bunny ears." Would he?

As you can tell, I love a good mailer, especially since that's pretty much the extent of political discourse in Nor'Town. If you got some laying around from the Ward 4 race or other from the Ward 2, scan 'em and make a jpg or png file and email them to nevada_scandalmonger@yahoo.com.

Apathy and Money

Seven percent. That's the percentage of registered voters in Ward 4 who voted for City Councilperson Buck. Yet, it was enough to give her four more years of rubber-stamping the decisions of big, corporate developers. And plot her next run for the Clark County Commission. Or will she settle for Mayor of Nor'Town?

1,375 voted for Buck /18,882 registered in Ward 4 = 7.3%

Buck spent $155,299.80 according to her financial report. That's over a hundred dollars per vote.

$155,299.80 / 1,375 votes = $112.95

It always seems to me it would be much more efficient just to give those voters the money directly. Instead, it goes to a bunch of slimy consultants. What a waste.

Buck's main ally was the apathy of 4th Warders. As she said, she got out "the same people who normally come out," a large percentage of which consisted of members of the police and firefighters unions, no doubt. They should be able to round up a thousand folk easily. Enjoy those contract negotiations, guys. She owes ya.

All those consultants Buck paid for used the most cynical strategy available:

It's hard to make people be interested if they believe the election is fixed. But the saddest news of all is that incumbents generally like super-low turnouts because they can afford the infrastructure to get their people to the polls. That is, they can fix the outcomes. (Ralston)

And the most grotesque aspect of it all was how Buck was able to get elected without appearing in a public forum to face her opponents. She should not be proud of this ugly little victory. And, frankly, the MSM should boycott her. Don't give her any face time, fellas. She don't deserve it. Ralston, ban her from Face to face.

And neither should the voters of Nor'Town feel any pride in this affair. We really seem to prefer plutocracy to democracy.

Campaign Finance Reports Are In!

Whoohoo! Contribution and Expense Reports for most of the candidates are up on the North Las Vegas city site.

Who's winning the money game? Incumbents, of course!

Total Contributions:

Ward 4

Shari Buck: $183,300
Richard Cherchio: $44,064
[UPDATE: Jo Cato $18,000]
Debra Lewis: $10,350

Ward 2

William Robinson $114,850
John T. Stephens $610

With all that money, you'd think Robinson would figure out a way to type his entries. And Ward 2, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Send that John Stephens some money. He can't even afford a website, for pete's sake. You all are just making a mockery of the democratic process.

I'll be looking over those reports real careful the next few days, but lookee what I've already spotted in Shari Buck's: the Fertitta Brothers:

[UPDATE: Aliante Holding is owned by Aliante Station: $5,000]
[UPDATE: Fiesta Rancho: $5,000]
Boulder Station $5,000
Palace Station $5,000
Station Casinos, Inc. $5,000
Texas Station $5,000
Texas Station In Kind Contributions, $2,567.25
Fertitta Total:      $22567.25 $27,567.25 $32,567.25

Now, in the state of Nevada, the maximum contribution allowed is $10,000, $5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the general. How is it that Stations Casinos can give over 22K? Let Sun reporter Coolican explain:

Some of the anonymity stems from what is known as "bundling." Although contributors can give only $10,000 to a candidate, a 1994 ruling by then-Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa argued that the Nevada campaign finance law allows different entities each to give $10,000.

As a result, wealthy individuals and companies form limited liability corporations so they can bundle their contributions and give candidates hundreds of thousands of dollars. These new companies have no public profile and exist only to funnel campaign cash, so they can remain a mystery to the public.

So, you ask, why bother with the $10,000 limit if Nevada politicians and their rich donors are cynically going to ignore. Now, that's a good question to ask your state Assemblyperson or Senator. Unfortunately, you'll find that no one has drafted any bills that directly address the problem for this session of the Legislature.

And if you want some real fun, go do a corporate entity search over at the Secretary of State's page for some of those Limited Liabilty Corporations, or LLC's, that you find in abundance in Buck's Contribution and Expense Report. I know I will.

Voting the Next Few Days

Ward 4 voting places the next few days:

March 22, Thursday Sun City Aliante Community Center 7390 Aliante Pkwy. 9am - 6pm
March 23, Friday Smith’s Centennial/Losee 9am - 6pm
March 24, Saturday Smith’s Centennial/Losee 9am - 6pm
March 25, Sunday Smith’s Centennial/Losee 9am - 6pm

Official schedule is over here.

830 have voted. Come'on guys. Even Mesquite's doing better than that!

About Two Percent

689 people have voted in the 4th Ward primary so far and 11 more have dared "downtown" to do so at city hall. Most have been using the Smith's that seemed pretty empty to me last Sunday, but, then again, I was there  early.

All those folks voted without knowing who's paying for the campaigns. (Neff) Campaign reports won't be out until after March 27. Except we know the incumbents have already pulled in money from casinos, developers, and the garbage kings.

Let's guesstimate. Assuming there are about 175,000 residents in North Las Vegas, that means you have about 43,000 in Ward 4. Take out 5,000 for being under age. So, about 36,000 still need to vote. That means less than 2 percent have voted so far.

6.8 percent voted in early voting in 2005, and there was a mayor running then. (RJ)

Over in the Sun, we get the real issues of the campaigns: Buck gets money from Casinos wanting to build in NLV, Buck tried to get the Secretary of State to make Cherchio pull his signs, somebody told the press about Cato's marital problems, and there are pedophiles in Ward 2. Sigh. What, Mike, no pigfarms?

The Face to Face with Jon Ralston with the Ward 4 debate with the candidates is up here. Anyone expecting to see Shari Buck will only be disappointed. You can't expect the incumbent to worry about a little old primary, can you? Not when she buying all those signs with developer and casino money!

Eleven

Yep, North Las Vegas became the joke of the valley when it turned out that only 11 people voted in the first two days of the Ward 4 early voting period (RJ) While foraging for food today I passed lonely election workers staring into space looking as bored as an audience at a Celine Dion concert. Eight voting machined stood lonely and ignored as citizens of the 4th ward no doubt had more important things to do. Like cooking in the meth lab, watching developers build condos and apartments, or looking after sick relatives.

At least that's what the incumbent Shari Buck's supposed to be doing. Her excuse for skipping the debate between the three challengers on Ralston's face to face was that she was caring for a sick relative. The show was aired Friday and hasn't been uploaded to the web yet, but when it does, will be over here. Raise your hand if you think the excuse was trumped up because Buck doesn't want to bother with debating until after the primary, which she probably assumes all that casino and developer money will easily post a win for her. Couldn't find somebody to sit in for her for a couple of hours? Or is the bubonic plague making the rounds in the Buck household?

Ward 4 folk should check out the Review Journal's report of the candidates. Once you get passed Buck's dismissive "they're nice people" quip, the challenger's are basically saying: it's the unchecked development, stupid! All three challengers are running against Buck as the insider, developer's friend.

Buck even pulled out the false dilemma that the only choice Nor'Towners have is to go along with developers or there won't be any jobs:

"I'm pro providing our citizens with jobs and shopping and housing," she said. "So, yes, that means having good relationships with developers so they know what we do and don't want."

Of course, the City Council only whispers when it says what it doesn't want. Olympia won't cut those nice campaign checks, otherwise.

Richard Cherchio Report Missing

Financial disclosure forms are due 10 days after candidates file for office in Nevada, Erin Neff reminds us. Almost all of the North Las Vegas candidates filed theirs. The exception: Richard Cherchio's report was not available on the Secretary of State's website as of this posting.

The reports are pretty useless, but you can have a gander of them from the SOS's site. Warning, they are in the usual pdf format favored by local gov:

Ward 2:

William Robinson

John Stephens III

Ward 4:

Shari Buck

Jo Cato

Richard Cherchio ?

Deborah Lewis

Let's hope the candidates don't fall into the bad habit of failing to disclose, like Asseemblyman Morse Arberry or Kelvin Atkinson.

Face To Face: NLV City Council Challengers

Don't miss the February 13th edition of Jon Ralston's Face to Face where you can currently view his interviews with the challengers in the North Las Vegas City Council races. In the Ward 4 race, Ralston interviewed Richard Cherchio and Jo Cato. In the Ward 2 race, he spoke with John Stevens III. Below I give some summaries of the interviews, since they'll be disappearing from the KLAS channel 8 site in about a week.

Richard Cherchio (Ward 4):

Cherchio's answered the question as to why he is running by saying that there is a need for representation in Ward 4. He believes that current councilperson Shari Buck is not responsive to the community in the sense of not getting input from community prior to making decisions on the council.

He made the interesting comment that the North Las Vegas community doesn't have a feeling of apathy, but rather one of irrelevance. So, the "pathetic" apathy of which Mayor Montandon complains is more the result of a feeling of powerlessness that citizens have as a result of their being pushed out of the political process by developers and council-folk like Shari Buck--and I would add, Mayor Mike--who scramble for huge campaign contributions from those very developers.

Cherchio suggests that Buck won't be serving out her next term should she win the election. That would seem likely, since she's already made a failed attempt to get onto the Clark County Commission.

Just a side note, if you vote on party lines, Buck ran for that position as a Republican. Yeah, yeah, the council race is non-partisan, but the Nevada Republican party has gone out of its way in the past to let its core know which judicial candidates are Republican, and they might do that again. The Clark County Republicans are already for the candidates to sign in, if only any of them dare to admit they belong to that ailing party.

Oh, yeah, Ralston mentions that Cherchio has a website with extensive information about Cherchio's views. He is I believe the only candidate with a campaign website so far. Buck is saving her corporate bucks for huge signs and, I suspect, carpet-bombing local programing T.V. ads. I'd certainly like to see all candidates create websites so that Northtowners can have more than a paragraph in the RJ's campaign supplement to base their votes on.

Jo Cato (Ward 4):

Jo Cato runs an organization that provides scholarships for at-risk kids and Pulse Magazine, which seems to be a clone of the RJ's neighborhood feel-good supplement, "Northern/Aliante View."  Cato is also on the North Las Vegas Planning Commission or, as I call it, the Developers Rubber Stamping Club.

Cato's reason for running is that she's been walking neighborhoods for candidates for many campaign cycles but finds that issues remain unresolved. I suppose that means she has supported Buck in the past but now finds Buck vulnerable enough to possibly take out.

Like Cherchio, Cato believes there is a disconnect between residents and Buck. On the Planning Commission, she sees a lot of residents dissatisfied with developer plans. She seems to think that just talking to the residents will help the problem, whereas the problem might be in the council letting developers do pretty much what they please.

Cato says she will restrict further growth of adult businesses in NLV but won't try to get rid of the Palomino Club and it's ilk. Hey look, the Palomino is a "landmark" North Las Vegas strip club! Sounds like it deserves zoining as a historical district.

John Stephens III (Ward 2):

According to Stephens, Ward 2 has not kept up with the progress in other areas of the city. The current city councilman William Robinson, who won't be able to run again after this term, won't have an incentive to work hard because he won't face election again, in Stephens' opinion. The Ward contains industries, like Republic Services, which, he claims, won't employ people from the Ward.

How to fight urban sprawl that empties Ward 2 of businesses? Stephens would create tax incentives to businesses to build in the Ward.

Stephens proposes a Trifecta of solutions to Ward 2's problems: (1) Stricter zoning. (2) Talking to members of the community to learn how they are solving problems in the Ward. (3) Liaisons: better communication between the City Council and neighbors about problems in the Ward.

(2) and (3) sound kinda the same to me, but who wants a bifecta?

And although Ralston seemed to think the pig farm near the school would be the defining issue of the race, most candidates figured it was no big deal. Looks like that pig farm should be zoned as a historical district.

Last Two Challengers

As candidate filing for the two open council seats come to a close, each ward got one more challenger. (RJ)

In Ward 4, Shari Buck is up against:

• Richard Cherchio
• Deborah Lewis
• Jo Cato, who runs a North Las Vegas philanthropic organization.

In Ward 2, William Robinson has two challengers:

• John Stevens
• Danielle Jones

Anyone with information or a comment on the race may leave a comment or e-mail me.

[UPDATE: according to the NLV elections site, Jones has withdrawn.]

Robinson Has a Challenger

City Councilman William Robinson has picked up a challenger for the Ward 2 race, one John T. Stephens III

Time will tell if Mr. Stephens is a serious candidate or is a narcissist who just wanted his name printed on a bunch of ballots. Anybody with any info about the candidate can zap me an email.

I noted something strange and potentially illegal in Councilman Robinson's financial report (page 2). It looks like Republic Disposal, yup, the garbage company, has contributed $15,000 to the Councilman's campaign. According to NRS 294A.100, no one can contribute more that $10,000 to an election. $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general. I look forward to the Councilman returning $5,000 of that contribution. And, whatever happened to penmanship? That report is a pain to read. Robinson pulled in about $211,000 in contributions last year and has already spent about $60,000 on the campaign. A chunk of that is going to a place called Southwest Strategies. The Councilman seems to prefer to spend his money on California media types. Doesn't trust the local talent, I suppose.

[UPDATE: A reader (yes, there's one!) writes in and after making a rude remark about my genitalia, notes that I pulled a Muth in confusing the San Diego Southwest Strategies with the Paradise Township one. However, last time I checked, Las Vegas is not North Las Vegas, and it just goes to show that it's hard to find good local talent to spend North Las Vegas dollars on.

The reader also notes that the $15,000 came from three corporate entities all having to do with garbage removal and having the word "Republic" in their name. Gee, that makes it all okay. In other words, the councilman is engaged in the borderline legal practice of "bunding" which allows cynical politicians like Mayor Mike to sidestep the Nevada campaign caps. When bundling, donors, like Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson, use multiple corporations each giving no more than the  maximum $10,000 to channel hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates. Oh, that makes it all so much better, no?]