Court delays ruling on residency

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

The ongoing residency controversy in the race for university regent District 13 will not be resolved before voters go to the polls on Sept. 7.

District Judge Lee Gates postponed the hearing to decide whether regent candidate Mark DeStefano is an actual resident of District 13 until the day of the primary election because DeStefano will be at the Republican National Convention in New York all next week.

"We're disappointed that the judge was not able to provide a quicker resolution of this," Jim Germain, one of the three candidates challenging DeStefano's residency, said. "I'm happy to just go back to the issues and the qualifications of the candidates, and unfortunately this is still a dark cloud hanging over the race."

Frank Cremen, the attorney representing Germain and fellow candidates James Dean Leavitt and Matthew Berkus, had asked the judge to set the hearing date for today. DeStefano and his attorney said they needed more time to prepare, a request that his opponents called a "stall tactic."

"They (DeStefano and his attorney) did the only thing they have left to avoid reality, which is to delay as long as possible," Berkus said.

All three plaintiffs said they were concerned about what would happen if the judge did not rule until after the election and DeStefano was one of the top two vote-getters in the primary. They wanted to settle the question of whether the third runner-up would be able to move on to the general election if the judge invalidates the votes for DeStefano.

Only the two top vote-getters in the six-person, non-partisan race are supposed to go on to the general election.

Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said he, too, was unsure of what would happen and said it would likely be up to the judge.

The three candidates challenging DeStefano's residency had wanted to hold the hearing before the start of early voting, which began Saturday, so that no voters would be disenfranchised if Gates rules DeStefano lives in District 7, as his opponents allege.

The candidates said they feared that DeStefano would wrongly take away votes from the other candidates.

"He may have affected who was first and second," Leavitt said.

"We won't know how much damage this guy has done."

Competition has been fierce in the primary between Leavitt and DeStefano, both of whom have banked on their Republican party affiliation to help them win votes. DeStefano is a Nevada delegate to the Republican National Convention and a member of the state committee to re-elect President Bush, and Leavitt has been active in the party of late.

Berkus is also a registered Republican but says he has stayed out of party politics. Party affiliation has not been an issue among the three Democrats in the race: Incumbent Tom Kirkpatrick and challengers Gloria Sturman and Germain.

"It shouldn't be a partisan race, it never has been, and we shouldn't make it one," Germain said.

For his part, DeStefano said he is glad voters will have the opportunity to decide whether he should represent them or not.

"The people will get to decide, that's the good news," said DeStefano, who has maintained he followed the state's residency rules. "What the judge will decide, I don't know."