Candidates call Commission B race brutal

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.

The mudslinging County Commission B race can be described as both brutal and a mess, which are the words the candidates use in their latest fliers.

The mailers went out last weekend. Shari Buck's flier calls Tom Collins "brutal and irresponsible." Collins' accuses Buck of being in favor of neighborhood casinos and big developers at the expense of the common man.

Democratic Assemblyman Collins says in his piece against the Republican North Las Vegas city councilwoman that "It's time to clean up this mess and give the people confidence in their elected representatives."

Gary Gray, manager for the Collins campaign, said voters need to determine for themselves if "there is something more to a donation."

The Collins flier says that Buck voted for Station Casinos' original plan to expand a casino that had been proposed near the intersection of Coralie Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, and approved the 1,900-acre Aliante development -- implying that money from casinos and developers swayed her votes on those projects and on the licensing of the Fiesta after Station bought it from the Maloof family.

Buck says the claims are ridiculous because Collins "has matched me dollar for dollar" in contributions from casino special interests and doubts that her opponent would be willing to return all of the money the resort industry has given him.

And she makes no apologies for the council's unanimous support of Aliante, calling the master-planned community "one of the best things that has ever happened to North Las Vegas."

Aliante's developer, American Nevada Company, is owned by the Greenspun family, which owns the Las Vegas Sun.

Collins, in his flier, says "contributions must be limited to only the year a candidate for County Commission is running for office." He said it is time to stop "raising money 24/7 and voting on issues before and after contributions are received."

Buck's mailer brings up 12-year-old misdemeanor battery, gross misdemeanor battery and drunken driving charges that Collins has previously addressed.

Buck spokeswoman Ronni Council said the latest mailer actually marks the first time that the Buck campaign has brought up Collins' "personal criminal past" in its literature.

She said in prior mailers and a TV ad last week Collins' voting record of opposing tougher drunken driving laws has been discussed. Council said Collins and news reports previously have addressed the personal issues.

Buck says the new flier is in response to "Tom acting like a schoolyard bully trying to intimidate me as a woman."

In her flier, she says: "Tom Collins, as an adult, has broken the law through drunk driving and assaulting people numerous times."

Gray calls the latest Buck piece "the same desperate type of campaigning against Tom not only in this race, but in prior Assembly races." He argues that if Collins was a criminal he would not have the endorsements of nearly every major local law enforcement and safety organization.

Both candidates were expected to be in the studios of KLVX-TV Channel 10 this afternoon to tape an hour-long debate involving three hotly contested county commission races. The debate is to air 8 p.m. Thursday on the same PBS station.