Organizer in drive to oust Moncrief seeks post

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004 | 11:22 a.m.

The group that turned in what appears to be more than enough signatures on a petition to force a recall election of Las Vegas City Councilwoman Janet Moncrief is throwing its support behind potential challenger Vicki Quinn, a leader of the petition drive said Tuesday.

Some local campaign consultants said they believe Moncrief will face a tough fight to keep her council seat, and two consultants with ties to the former Councilman Michael McDonald defeated last year said they think Moncrief would probably lose a recall election.

Larry Anspach, who leads the Committee to Recall Janet Moncrief, said his group will pay Southwest Strategies -- which collected signatures for the recall petition -- to collect signatures to get Quinn on a recall ballot.

Quinn has "a good record of activism and I think she's a real go-getter who will be able to work with the others on the council," Anspach said. He would not say how much the group will spend supporting Quinn.

Quinn, 45, is an activist for increased access to public buildings for the handicapped, most notably at the Thomas & Mack Center, and was also a member of Anspach's committee when it formed. Quinn said she didn't decide to run against Moncrief until this week, when it looked like the group would have enough signatures to force a recall election, and other potential candidates weren't coming forward.

Anspach gave the City Clerk's office petitions with 2,660 signatures around noon Tuesday, starting a process of counting and checking the signatures that involves state, county and city officials. If the government officials determine the group has collected at least 2,106 signatures from registered voters in Moncrief's Ward 1, then a recall election will be scheduled.

Anspach and others involved with the recall have said they want a new representative on the council because Moncrief is charged with falsifying her campaign finance reports and because they feel she has failed to block unwanted development.

Moncrief's detractors most often cite her failure to stop a rezoning that allowed local developer Irwin Molasky to build a Social Security building along Buffalo Drive, north of Oakey Boulevard. Members of Anspach's neighborhood successfully sued the city to overturn the zoning decision, but Anspach said former Councilman Michael McDonald would have convinced his fellow council members to reject that rezoning.

Moncrief and her likely opponents said they expect a recall election will be held in early January, although the exact date won't be set until -- and unless -- the petitions are determined to have enough valid signatures.

Quinn said she is pleased to have the support of her neighbors in what would be her first run for elected office. Quinn has said she wants to protect Ward 1 from unwanted development, keep adult businesses from encroaching on neighborhoods and put more police on the streets.

"I'm not running against her (Moncrief); I'm running for Ward 1," Quinn said.

Moncrief said she will campaign hard to keep her council seat and said she had received numerous calls of support from constituents Tuesday.

Moncrief also said that it is important for voters to know that Quinn's husband Stephen was McDonald's appointment to the city Planning Commission, and that he was on the commission for about seven years.

"People should know who she is," Moncrief said.

Quinn said the recall election had nothing to do with her husband's service on the commission, and added that she hopes to treat her constituents like McDonald did.

Though he was caught up in a flurry of negative press around the time he lost to Moncrief, McDonald was known as a councilman who took care of his constituents' problems, Quinn said.

"Michael McDonald was never indicted although everyone believed he would be when they voted for Janet Moncrief," Quinn said. "Now Janet Moncrief has been indicted."

Moncrief said her indictment on five counts stemming from allegedly filing false campaign finance reports, should not be a factor in the recall because she is innocent and will win her case.

Moncrief's case is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 7, but she also has a court date on Dec. 15, when her attorney will argue to dismiss the case. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Republican campaign consultant Steve Wark, who ran McDonald's 1999 campaign, said Moncrief's legal problems will hurt her even if she wins in court.

"She's already tarnished," he said.

Wark said Moncrief would have "less than a 50 percent" chance of surviving a recall.

"I would have to think that a recall election would be very difficult for her to survive if there were quality candidates available," he said. "She's damaged herself with the indictment and how she's presented herself on the City Council."

Wark predicted that Quinn would be a "formidable candidate."

Jim Ferrence, who ran McDonald's campaign against Moncrief, said if Quinn runs with the help of Southwest Strategies "Moncrief has no chance of winning."

Those in favor of a recall are also encouraged by a Southwest Strategies poll of 3,000 registered voters from Ward 1, which showed that 57 percent of those surveyed supported recalling Moncrief, 23 percent opposed the recall, and the rest were undecided or declined to answer, a statement from the recall group said.

But Democratic campaign consultant Dan Hart said it's too early to say how Moncrief would fare, and added that Moncrief has experience running the type of campaign that a recall election would call for.

"Any of these special elections are decided by a small number of people," he said. "It's all going to be about organization ... it'll be a door-to-door, much more personal type of electioneering, and Moncrief has shown some ability in that regard."

In her race against McDonald, Moncrief, a nurse, was known to go door-to-door in her hospital scrubs to speak to voters.

Hart also said that Moncrief would be helped by the relatively short time there would be to campaign, and if many candidates appeared on a recall election ballot.

"She's going to have some people who vote for her no matter what," he said.

So far, one other potential candidate has surfaced.

Miguel Barrientos, president of the Las Vegas chapter of the Mexican-American Political Association, is overseeing the effort to put Kelly Benavidez on the ballot. But Benavidez, a City Council liaison for Councilman Lawrence Weekly, said she has not been asked to be a candidate and has no desire to run for council.

If Benavidez did decide to run, she would have to take an unpaid leave of absence from her city job while campaigning, City Manager Doug Selby said.