Boggs McDonald edges Goldwater to keep seat

Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004 | 10:52 a.m.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald on Tuesday narrowly held on to her seat representing District F, which includes the southern part of Summerlin and much of the southwest part of Clark County.

Boggs McDonald, the Republican, took 38,080 votes, 52.2 percent, in beating Assemblyman David Goldwater, who received 34,932 votes, 47.8 percent, according to complete but unofficial results from the Clark County Election Department.

Goldwater, who ran on a slow-growth platform, accused Boggs McDonald of catering to developers and gaming interests, while Boggs McDonald sharply criticized Goldwater's character.

Boggs McDonald ran a campaign that focused on her work in local government, a record that included just eight months as a Clark County commissioner. Boggs McDonald is an incumbent by virtue of her appointment by Gov. Kenny Guinn in March, when she replaced Mark James, who was elected in 2002 but announced his resignation a little more than a year after taking office.

Boggs McDonald reminded her supporters that she'll gear up her campaign for 2006 in six months

"We'll have to do this all over again in 2006," she said at the Republican party at Mandalay Bay.

"Thank you for the victory tonight," she said. "It is sweet."

She thanked her supporters who put her over the top in a Democratic district.

"Know that I'll be working very, very hard," she said.

Boggs McDonald, a conservative black woman in a party often considered the haven of white men, has been a rising star in the Republican Party since her conversion from the Democratic Party in the late 1990s. Her resume included stints as a Las Vegas assistant city manager and as a city councilwoman from 1999 to her appointment to the commission, and she has said that if voters wanted to see what she will do, they should look at her record in local government.

Boggs McDonald, however, worked quickly to make her presence on the county board known. In one of her noteworthy actions, she moved to block new construction in the Rhodes Ranch master-planned community in her district until the developer, Rhodes Homes, identified a site for a promised elementary school. She also required the developer to put up $4 million for water service to the school.

With an 11th-hour agreement for the school in hand, Boggs McDonald used the issue to deflect Goldwater's criticism that she had taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from developers.

Boggs McDonald collected more than $1.3 million from developers, gamers, her Republican brethren and others, some of it in the form of $10,000 checks. She used much of that money -- her campaign staffers say about half of it -- in a television blitz that mostly focused on Goldwater's 2002 arrest for drunk driving, a decade-old bar brawl and subsequent restraining order, and allegations of inappropriate conduct and comments while serving in the Legislature.

Goldwater raised half what Boggs McDonald garnered. His campaign focused on growth and the growth's negative impact on the quality of life in Clark County, and his mailers and television ads have played up those negative aspects, as well as bringing attention to the largess of developers for his opponent's campaign.

"If I win this election, it is for one reason: the growth message mattered and it is a mandate to slow down growth and maintain our quality of life. It is a mandate to stand up for neighbors," Goldwater said Friday. "If I lose, the opposite is true. If I lose, it clearly shows how important money is to the political process."

Goldwater said following the Tuesday election that he would seek another way to serve the community, and would continue working as a financial adviser.

"I'll just go back to work and serve my community out of elected office," he said.