Hafen, Cyphers retain council seats

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

Perhaps showing they really are as happy with Henderson as incumbent City Council members claim, voters re-elected Andy Hafen and Amanda Cyphers by wide margins on Tuesday.

Cyphers and Hafen said their strong showing is a vote of confidence from city residents.

"People are happy with the direction Henderson is going," Cyphers said. "Henderson is growing fast, but it's quality growth."

Hafen, 48, overcame the well-funded campaign of former Marine Rocco Tucker, who put about $80,000 of his own money into his bid for Henderson's Ward 2 council seat.

Hafen received 8,364 votes, almost 61 percent of the votes cast and more than double the number runner-up Tucker received.

Tucker, a 35-year-old businessman, received 3,898 votes, about 28.4 percent, according to unofficial totals released by the Clark County Election Department.

Tucker said his campaign was always an "uphill battle" because he was going up against a 16-year incumbent in Hafen. Tucker said he will run for public office again, but he has not decided what he will run for.

Meanwhile, Cyphers, 36, similarly overwhelmed her challengers, taking almost 60 percent of the votes in the race for the Ward 1 council seat.

Coming in second to Cyphers, who drew 8,134 votes, was Ann Barron, a former city economic development director, who received 3,998 votes, 29.5 percent of the vote.

Because Cyphers and Hafen received more than 50 percent of the vote they were declared the winners of their elections and do not have to go on to a general election ballot.

The incumbents' victories were also helped by significant campaign funding advantages over their opponents.

As of March 27, Cyphers had spent $128,502, while Barron, 54, ran second in campaign spending with $10,599.

And despite Tucker's investment into his own campaign, Hafen still greatly outspent his challenger $176,669 to $109,989 as of March 27.

Hafen, who won a fifth term on the council, said Tucker probably spent more than any challenger he's faced. Because of this, Hafen said, he waged a "more aggressive" campaign than in years past, sending voters seven or eight different campaign mailers, which Hafen said was double or triple his output in past campaigns.

Hafen's victory also came despite a persistent and frequent attack from Tucker that the councilman had become callous to constituents' concerns.

Also running against Hafen were Jesse Dominic Harris, a computer repairman, and Briana Ousley-Mitchell, a former customer relations agent for now-defunct National Airlines

Harris, 22, received 4.5 percent of the vote.

Ousley-Mitchell drew 6.3 percent of the vote.

The third candidate in Cyphers' race, Edward Molitoris, received about 10.6 percent of the vote. Molitoris, a Clark County building inspector, admitted his campaign platform might be unpopular with voters. He favors turning Yucca Mountain into the nation's nuclear waste dump and is against fast growth.