Potential candidates gather signatures for council race

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

Whether or not Las Vegas Councilwoman Janet Moncrief will face a recall election could be known as early as this afternoon.

Meanwhile, at least one potential candidate may have enough signatures on a petition to put her on a recall election ballot, another potential candidate has surfaced, and a private group has ended its efforts to draft a city employee for the ballot.

Clark County Election Department workers are expected to check 500 randomly selected signatures from a recall petition turned in Nov. 23 by a citizens' group that is now supporting a potential challenger.

If at least 77.7 percent of those signatures are found to be from registered voters in the city's Ward 1, which Moncrief represents, that would trigger a recall election, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. That's because the ratio of valid signatures is assumed to be the same for the sample and the entire petition, and so the petition would meet the 2,106-signiature minimum.

If the percentage of acceptable signatures is between 69.9 percent and 77.7 percent, the Election Department would have to check all the 2,711 signatures turned in to see if there are at least 2,106 signatures from registered Ward 1 voters. If less than 69.9 percent of the random sample is acceptable, the petition would fail and there would be no recall election.

Lomax said his staff would begin checking the signatures at 9 a.m. today and could be done within a few hours.

If the 77.7 percent threshold is met, a recall election could be held by late January.

Once a recall election is scheduled potential challengers to Moncrief would have until 20 days before the election to turn in petitions nominating them for the ballot. To be successful those petitions would be put through the same verification process as the recall petition.

Vicki Quinn, an activist for increased access to public buildings for the handicapped, said Tuesday that the petition to put her on a recall ballot has about 2,300 signatures -- almost 200 more than necessary -- although those signatures have not yet been verified to make sure they are all from registered Ward 1 voters.

"We're very close and we'll get there," Quinn said, adding that they have not stopped collecting signatures for her petition. Quinn has the backing of the group that turned in the recall petition, including the paid help of Southwest Strategies, the political consulting firm that gathered the signatures on the recall petition.

Former Clark County School Board member Lois Tarkanian said her supporters have been colleting signatures for her candidate-nominating petition since Friday, and said she did not know how many they had so far.

"I entered this thinking it would be hard to get the signatures, so if we get them, we get them, and if we don't, we don't," said Tarkanian, whose husband is former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.

Also, Miguel Barrientos, president of the Las Vegas chapter of the Mexican-American Political Association, said he has halted his group's effort to put Kelly Benavidez on the ballot because he thinks it will be too expensive to run. Benavidez, a City Council liaison for Councilman Lawrence Weekly, has said she did not want to be on the ballot.

Peter "Chris" Christoff, 69, said Tuesday he plans to try to collect enough signatures to appear on the possible recall ballot, too.

Christoff, a longtime government critic, has ties to Moncrief's legal troubles that helped prompt the recall effort.

Christoff claims he helped Moncrief's successful 2003 campaign, when she unseated incumbent Councilman Michael McDonald, but he is one of several former supporters who said Moncrief did not report their contributions on her campaign finance reports.

Moncrief is facing criminal charges for allegedly filing incorrect campaign finance reports.

Moncrief says she is innocent of the charges against her, and said her case could be thrown out Dec. 15.

Moncrief, who has said she expects the recall will happen, has also been preparing. She held a fundraiser last week and said she has been going door-to-door to get her constituents' support.