Ken McCall: Please, let’s have a clean election for District 1

Monday, Oct. 7, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

LISTEN UP ALL you Republicans in Assembly District 1.

Please, please do the right thing Tuesday and send this primary race to its final resting place.

Many people are counting on you to turn out in numbers and make a decisive choice between candidates Anne DiMartini and Jeff Knight.

The candidates will thanks you. The Clark County Election Department will thank you. Those of us covering the race will thank you.

Heck, you'll probably thank yourselves because you won't have to read any more obligatory paragraphs like this:

Tuesday's unprecedented second special election was called after polling errors invalidated two previous elections. Knight apparently beat DiMartini in the Sept. 3 primary by six votes, but 13 errors were found and DiMartini requested a new election. She got it, and won by one vote on Sept. 24. But when one error was found, Knight requested a new election.

And listen, folks, if you're not a resident of the 39 precincts in this Assembly district, please don't insist on voting like the Einstein who blew the last special election.

Of course, this particular Einstein had a couple of assistants in the Election Department who bowed to his inability to take no for an answer.

Registrar of Voters Kathryn Ferguson says those individuals have been "very seriously" talked to and more training was conducted over the weekend.

So let's get out there and get this over with.

And keep our fingers crossed.

* Speaking of doing the right thing, it appears the city of North Las Vegas has finally seen the light on preserving a remnant of the Kiel Ranch.

The city owns five acres of the historic ranch, including a circa-1856 adobe structure that historians call the oldest standing building in Southern Nevada.

The City Council met Thursday, and no one even mentioned selling the parcel to developers.

This is a major victory for historic preservationists considering that's exactly what the council voted to do last spring.

Of course, last spring the council hadn't been threatened with a potential seven-figure penalty for breaching the terms of a federal grant it used to buy 27 acres of the ranch.

The 1974 contract included a promise to restore the entire 27 acres and preserve it for "public uses." Instead, the city sold off all but five acres.

State officials say the city could be liable to reimburse the federal government for half the current market value of the entire 27 acres. But the officials said they'd drop it if the city would agree to restore what's left.

And what do you know, selling the entire parcel didn't come up once.

Although the council didn't make a decision, the three options they discussed all revolve around different ways to preserve the ranch.

Two of those options involve leasing 1.4 acres of the site and buying an adjacent 1.65-acre parcel. The moves would provide better access to the proposed park at Carey Avenue and Commerce Street, and would provide income to pay for its maintenance.

Two of the options also called for rebuilding the so-called White House, which burned down in 1992.

Diane Davis, a member of an advisory committee on the ranch and spokeswoman for the preservationists, said city staff came up with some "very good" ideas for restoring the ranch, including purchase of the adjacent land.

But she isn't counting any chickens yet.

"This isn't the first time we've gotten this far," Davis said.

The biggest remaining obtacle is finding money to rebuild the White House. The city has $830,000 in a preservation fund resulting from the sale of 22 acres of the ranch, but staff estimates the cost of full site restoration and rebuilding the ranch house at $945,000.

Money, Davis notes, has always been the stumbling block in the past.

But, she points out, "None of our other city parks have to pay for their own upkeep -- and this one does.

"Considering they are only going to restore five acres when they committed to do 27, I don't think it was asking too much of them."

The city staff has two weeks to crunch the numbers on other ideas for the site. The council will consider the ranch again Oct. 16.