Columnist Jeff German: Ward 2 decision not easy

Friday, June 18, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

With so many candidates and so little time to make a decision, finding the best person to represent Ward 2 on the City Council in Tuesday's special election isn't going to be easy.

As a Ward 2 resident, I can see now why the City Council handed this one off to the voters.

The majority of the 12 candidates are qualified to run. Trying to figure out who's the most qualified, however, has been the difficult task.

My mailbox has been weighted down with political mailers from the leading contenders trying to separate themselves from the pack.

Having observed some of the candidates in action over the years, I know a little more about them than the average voter, but that isn't making my decision any easier.

So I can imagine how overwhelmed the average voter must be wading through the campaign rhetoric.

I have known Steve Wolfson, for example, to be a skilled criminal defense attorney. He has spent the most money in the race, more than $80,000, primarily on campaign fliers.

In his latest flier he says he's "tired of reading about bribery indictments, ethical lapses, election irregularities, expanding strip clubs and sleaze."

But he neglects to point out that he has defended his share of sleazy clients in court.

Still, Wolfson chairs the Nevada State Bar's Ethics Committee and does know something about ethical standards. He would set a higher bar for the City Council, which would be a welcome sight.

Bob Genzer has a wealth of government experience as the city's longtime planning director. In one campaign mailer, he says he "knows first-hand what it takes to be an effective city councilman."

I believe him. Yet I'm concerned that most of his $66,618 in campaign contributions have come from the very developers he has regulated, and I wonder whether that would have an impact on his loyalty to the voters.

The word at City Hall, however, is that Genzer would have too much personal integrity to let down the people who put him in office.

In his mailers Richard Truesdell, a real estate executive and chairman of the Las Vegas Planning Commission, has been touting his experience as "exactly what" the community needs.

Or does he mean exactly what Mayor Oscar Goodman needs? One of Goodman's political consultants, Tom Letizia, is running Truesdell's campaign, and Truesdell sits on the board of the Meadows School, the pride and joy of the mayor's wife.

Truesdell also has ties to developers but, like Genzer, he's a straight shooter who would know where his true loyalties lie. Truesdell caught my attention in his latest political flier promising to fight for a legislative rollback of property taxes which, he says, are about to rise dramatically because of skyrocketing home values.

One candidate I'm not excited about is Nevada Stupak, who has run for office before. He may be a nice kid, but he comes with baggage, his maverick millionaire father Bob Stupak, who was accused of pulling the strings in Janet Moncrief's successful bid for a City Council seat last year. The younger Stupak likely would be manipulated by Dad.

Gabriel Lither, a deputy state attorney general who's running a grass-roots campaign without big money donors, as a private citizen led the successful charge to scale back the Red Rock Station casino project. His lack of political experience on a City Council dominated by the mayor could work to the disadvantage of Ward 2 residents. But Lither also has shown an ability to fight to improve the quality of life in the ward.

Then there's real estate agent Joanne Levy. The only special interest she would be indebted to is herself. She must want this job pretty bad because she is spending $70,000 of her own money to get it. Levy learned a lot about City Hall from her late husband Al Levy, a former councilman.

So who's the best candidate to represent Ward 2? I'll have to get back to you on that.

The good news is that this decision would be much harder if none of the candidates was qualified.