Three council members enjoy new status as elected officials

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, April 5, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

Three Las Vegas City Council members on Wednesday cast their first votes as elected representatives of their respective wards.

The campaign season began in February, and since then the former appointees have deflected criticism about their short time on the council.

But in the end, Lynette Boggs McDonald, Michael Mack and Lawrence Weekly were elected by huge majorities. No challenger came close to topping the incumbents' overwhelming war chests, either.

Boggs McDonald experienced her first council campaign, one littered with accusations, ethics allegations and a bitter war of words with her opponent, Mark Solomon.

Part of Boggs McDonald's strategy was to inform voters of her accomplishments in the ward since appointed to the council in July 1999 and what can be expected of her in the future. Though attacked by Solomon via mailers and the airwaves, her strategy barely wavered.

During Wednesday's council meeting she proudly displayed a recent gift from Mayor Oscar Goodman and a testament to her fight with Solomon: a pair of red boxing gloves.

In reponse to Solomon's accusations that Boggs McDonald was a "career bureaucrat" and out of touch with the people, the incumbent's campaign team conducted their own research on Solomon. The team discovered that Solomon apparently had taken free golf games while a member of the Planning Commission and the board of Zoning Adjustment.

Solomon said he was simply acting on the concerns of residents who relayed to him their frustration with Boggs McDonald's inability to answer their questions.

Boggs McDonald's campaign manager, Steve Forsythe, said candidates take a calculated risk when they try to drag down an incumbent.

"I'm not a big believer in negative campaigning. I do think it backfires," Forsythe said.

It apparently isn't over, however, as acquaintances of Solomon have filed three ethics complaints against Boggs McDonald over a trip she took last year paid for by Station Casinos.

Boggs McDonald is partly to thank for Mack being appointed to the council in January 2000 and having the chance to win his seat outright. City Councilman Michael McDonald had pushed for Orlando Sanchez to fill the new Ward 6 seat. When it came time to make a decision, Boggs McDonald, who had said she would support Sanchez, instead supported Mack.

In his first campaign Mack raised more than $500,000, more than any other candidate.

Dan Hart, Mack's campaign manager, said the strategy behind the campaign was to promote voter turnout.

Hart said things are slightly different due to the fact Mack was an appointee.

"We had to do a little bit more introductory stuff," Hart said. "We had to introduce him to the voters because there were some that didn't know him all that well."

Weekly, who defeated former City Councilman Bob Nolen, said his strategy was to personally speak to voters about issues affecting the community.

"My strategy was being sincere about what it is I have tried to do in one year, and being as accessible as I possible could," Weekly said. "People trusted in that."

In North Las Vegas, one of the toughest races involved incumbent City Councilman John Rhodes -- who is facing three charges of felony insurance fraud brought by the state's attorney general's office Insurance Fraud division -- and former planning commissioner Robert Eliason.

Rhodes ran a single-issue campaign: He took on the police department. In the months leading up to the election Rhodes inundated voters with countless mailers that accused police of racial profiling and violating residents' rights by establishing what he calls a "ticket quota" system.

Rhodes, who got 37 percent of the vote in the race for a Ward 1 council seat, and Eliason (28 percent) will once again face off in June during the general election.

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