Williams bows to controversy, Munford

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 10:50 a.m.

In the end, Democrat Wendell Williams probably just had too many scandals attached to his name to pull out another election night victory.

After 18 years in the Assembly, and handily winning his most recent re-election campaigns, Williams' political career came to a screeching halt Tuesday.

Harvey Munford, a retired high school government teacher who lost to Williams four years ago, took 57 percent of the vote in the District 6 primary.

Munford, who also ran unsuccessfully for Las Vegas City Council in 1998, is a retired U.S. government teacher at Bonanza High School.

Until the end, a win was not out of the question for Williams, a nine-time incumbent who has a street and an elementary school in Las Vegas named after him.

But his campaign apparently was weighed down by the scandals around him.

Munford said he felt he had a 50-50 chance to win the seat, though he said he knew he was hurt when Williams' campaign called him "the great White hope." Other black leaders also rallied around the long-time legislator, prompting people in the district to wonder who was backing Munford, he said.

"Some of them did react to it, yes they did," Munford said.

But Munford attributed his success to the extensive walking he did in the district and his support from his previous students. The 64-year-old just retired after finishing his last summer school class.

Munford didn't bring up Williams' ethical woes during the campaign, but he didn't have to.

A third-party group, the Citizens for Ethics in Government, attacked Williams for the controversies that surrounded him, and Williams fought back on the campaign trail.

But Munford said constituents were already aware of what had happened to Williams long before the mail pieces came out.

"The media has made it crystal clear to the public what he had done," Munford said. "It actually was covered extensively in the newspapers."

Last fall, Williams was one of the most prominent faces in the "double-dipping" investigation, which found that he earned thousands of dollars from the city of Las Vegas -- including paid sick days -- while serving in Carson City. Williams was ultimately fired from his city job.

Williams was also accused of using his position in the Legislature to arrange the hire of a close friend, Topazia "Briget" Jones, for a clerical position at the Community College of Southern Nevada. Jones allegedly made unauthorized visits to Carson City to work for Williams as part of her job with the college.

Williams also found himself caught up in the controversy over hiring and lobbying practices at CCSN, a controversy that bogged down the university system Board of Regents this past year.

Before those scandals, Munford took just one-third of the vote to Williams's two-thirds in 2000.

Munford said he did not attack Williams on the campaign trail but did hear mixed comments about the legislator when he was out in the community. Many people did feel that Williams received harsher punishment at the city than his boss, who kept her job, Munford said.

"Most of the constituents in District 6 know Wendell's personality," Munford said. "They're aware of his behavior and his record as an assemblyman, but many did acknowledge that Wendell sort of overstepped his authority as being a representative."

In heavily Democratic District 6, Munford has a strong leg up in the general election where he will face three opponents: Republican Cornell Clark, Libertarian Charles Schneider and Independent American Robert Petersen.

If elected, Munford has pledged to work to bring more government projects to the low-income district, which includes the area around the Spaghetti Bowl. He has said that he wants to turn around the district's image as poor and crime-ridden.

Williams could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Sun reporter Kirsten Searer contributed to this story.