Bonaventure leads race for Department 9

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 9:14 a.m.

The field of eight people vying for the newly created Justice of the Peace Department 9 seat was narrowed to a 28-year-old native Las Vegan and a Clark County deputy district attorney.

Department 9 was the most hotly contested of the five Justice Court races. Three candidates in other departments ran unopposed.

Joe Bonaventure, a prosecutor in the Clark County criminal division for 14 months and an alumnus of the charter class of the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, grabbed 42,146 votes, or 43.8 percent.

He will face Bernie Zadrowski, 38, another prosecutor in the district attorney's office, who finished second with 12,697 votes or 13 percent.

Zadrowski edged Lizzie Hatcher, 12,345 votes. Fernando Guzman finished fourth with 11.294.

In Department 7, Chris Rasmussen was eliminated from that three-way race. Jim Gubler and Karen Bennett will square off in the general election.

Bennett won with primary with 37,189 votes, 41 percent, to 35,346, 39 percent, for Gubler. Rasmussen picked up 17,007 votes.

Incumbents TonyAbbatangelo, James Bixler and Nancy Oesterle ran unopposed in their respective departments.