Fight seen in School Board races

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, May 22, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

There may be a dearth of candidates for seats in the state Assembly and Senate, but each of the three Clark County School Board incumbents up for re-election will face at least one challenger on the November ballot.

Sheila Moulton, the current School Board president, is seeking her second term as the representative of District G. Board members Susan Brager-Wellman and Larry Mason are each seeking their third terms, as representatives of districts D and F, respectively.

Moulton said Tuesday her primary concerns are student achievement, which is why she has thrown her full support behind schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia's initiatives to have every child reading proficiently by third grade and enrolled in algebra by the eighth grade.

"If we want our children to achieve both inside and outside the classroom, we have to ensure they have every tool for success," Moulton said.

Moulton's challengers are Julie "Gina" Greisen, Van Franklin Woertz and Tuston Lee Brown. Greisen, an executive board member of Teamsters Local 14 and a single mother, said she wants better accountability of how the district uses its funds.

The School Board has faced serious fiscal challenges in balancing the district's $1.3 billion budget for the coming year, and cuts in transportation services and middle school athletics are expected.

"Before you go around asking for more money, you need to tell people honestly how you've spent the funds you already had," said Greisen, formerly with the public works department of the city of North Las Vegas.

Neither Woertz nor Brown returned calls for comment.

Brager-Wellman began volunteering in the School District 30 years ago. Her three children are graduates of Clark County schools, and five of her 10 grandchildren are currently students in the district.

Brager-Wellman's opponents on the ballot are Bert Kash Blevins III and Mitchell Tracy.

This is Tracy's second bid for public office in Nevada -- he ran unsuccessfully in the Republican congressional primary in 2000 against incumbent Rep. Jim Gibbons. Tracy, an insurance claims adjuster, is the father of Taylor, 8, a student at Ober Elementary School.

Blevins, also on the ballot for the District F seat against Brager-Wellman and Tracy, could not be reached for comment.

Incumbent Mason will face one challenger -- Pablo Castro Zavala, a freelance television producer for the Spanish-language network Telemundo.