County Commission District C

Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004 | 4:19 a.m.

Clark County Commission Chairman Chip Maxfield, who represents District C, is being challenged in the Republican primary by Bill Krane, a political neophyte and owner of a health-food store.

The winner would face Deputy District Attorney Jerry Tao, who has no opponent in the Democratic primary.

Krane, 71, said in his response to a Sun questionnaire that he wants to see term limits for local office-holders.

He has made a point of his outsider status to the political process.

"I have no war chest or financial supporters," he wrote in an e-mail. "I am beholding to no one. I do not fill out special interest group questionnaires."

A list of his priorities includes restricting high-rise buildings to the Strip and downtown; conservation of air, water and wildlife; salary caps for county managers; and "property tax limits of 1 percent," rolled back to 2002.

The state Legislature and Constitution oversee property tax issues.

Krane, a resident of Sun City-Summerlin, says he has a special affinity for the issues affecting seniors.

"I am the only candidate who understands the problems of the senior citizen as I am one of them," he said.

Both Krane and Tao have criticized Maxfield for abstaining from votes on issues affecting his former civil engineering company, Southwest Engineering. Maxfield recently announced he had sold his interest in the company he founded nearly 20 years ago, but not because of the election-year criticism.

Maxfield, 48, who helped pass new ethics rules for county employees and commissioners and voted to make it more difficult to change the county's land-use master plans, says he's running on his record.

Among the other efforts he cites: Speeding up completion of the Las Vegas Beltway, supporting tougher restrictions on dances at adult strip clubs, leading efforts to preserve rural areas in the northwest urban area and opposing a proliferation of billboards outside the urban core.