Monday, Nov. 8, 2004 | 9:33 a.m.
One election down, but the cycle continues.
In addition to candidates gearing up for local elections in the spring, there is less than a month to go before the deadline for signatures in the recall petition against Las Vegas Councilwoman Janet Moncrief.
If her opponents gather the signatures -- and spokesmen for each of the two groups seeking the recall say they're confident they will -- the Ward 1 election would take place early in 2005.
Lee Haynes, who is leading one effort, said "right now it looks very doable, and we have until Dec. 2."
Larry Anspach, who as president of the Neighborhood Alliance Association is working on the other recall effort, said he thinks "by next week we should have them (the quota of signatures).
"We were really waiting for the election to be over to really get going with this."
The two efforts are not related. In fact, Haynes said, he's afraid that somehow they will step on each other's toes.
"We're so close I don't think it can be anything but a distraction to people. They'll say, 'Well, we already signed one,' " Haynes said.
He launched the recall effort in September, following the indictment of Moncrief in early August on charges that she signed incorrect campaign finance reports. The state is using a law that makes falsifying a public document is a felony to prosecute Moncrief.
Haynes listed the indictment as the last straw in Moncrief's tenure, and cited a general inaccessibility to constituents and lack of clout with her fellow council members as ongoing problems. However, Moncrief has questioned his motives, noting that he has been involved with adult businesses that have not received her support.
Anspach's major issue is more specific -- Moncrief's failure to stop a rezoning that allowed a powerful developer to build a Social Security building in a residential corridor along Buffalo Drive, just north of Oakey Boulevard.
Members of Anspach's neighborhood sued the city, and the issue is to be in court this week.
That effort is considered among political insiders a more substantial challenge to Moncrief. Anspach's group has contracted with Southwest Strategies, a political consulting group that has sophisticated grassroots organizing techniques, to gather the signatures necessary for a recall.
According to city rules, it would take about 2,100 signatures, equal to a quarter of the votes cast in the last Ward 1 election, to force a recall election. Each group has 90 days from the time the intent to recall was filed; Haynes' group filed Sept. 2, and the other filed Sept. 3.
The Clark County clerk or Elections Department has four working days to count the raw number of signatures. Once it counts the signatures, it informs the secretary of state's office, which then tells the county to verify the signatures. The verification must take place within nine working days of the secretary of state's order.
The election must be called between 10 and 20 days after the petition is found to be sufficient, unless a court complaint has been filed.
After that, there are two ways the election can proceed. One is if a challenger emerges. To be on the ballot, a person must gather the same number of signatures from voters in the ward as it took to force the recall election.
If there are one or more candidates, the ballot will not mention the recall, but will simple have Moncrief's name and title on it, along with the names of the challengers.
If nobody emerges, the ballot will offer two choices: "for recall" or "against recall."
If Moncrief is recalled, the City Council will decide whether to appoint someone to the position or have a special election.
Some jockeying already has begun, although it's unclear by whom.
Haynes said he was asked to gather signatures to nominate City Council Ward 5 liaison Kelly Benavidez as a Ward 1 candidate.
He said he wasn't sure who was behind the effort. He said that in the process of seeking an endorsement from a political group representing Hispanics he was asked to gather the signatures. The flier touting her background does not have a name or telephone number, and Haynes said he was not sure of the name of the group.
The issue reached the 10th floor of City Hall, where City Manager Doug Selby said he was convinced Benavidez had nothing to do with the effort.
"We are investigating. However at this point I have no reason to doubt Kelly's assertion this was done without her consent or knowledge," Selby said. "Somebody decided to draft her without her acknowledgement or knowledge."
Benavidez said she didn't know who might have put her name out as a candidate. However, she said she was approached by a group that was unfamiliar to her several months ago, and she told them she was not interested in running for office.
"I think they were from California. They were here for the get-out-the-vote and registration (efforts), so I don't know much about them," Benavidez said. "That was the first time I had heard of them."
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