Ross, Gillins to face off on June 7

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, April 6, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

The top two fundraisers in the race for the open Ward 6 seat on the Las Vegas City Council easily topped nine others in Tuesday's primary election and will now go head-to-head in the June 7 general election.

Steve Ross and Mary Gillins both received more than 27 percent of the votes in the primary. No other candidate had more than 13 percent, according to complete but unofficial results from the Clark County Election Department.

Ross and Gillins said the primary election turned out much as they expected. They will now face off in a general election they say will be focused on the issues of growth, traffic, and for Ross taxes.

The 11 candidates were running to replace Councilman Michael Mack, who decided not to run for re-election saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

In the first leg of the race to replace Mack, Ross received 1,489 votes, or 31.6 percent of the vote, and Gillins received 1,291 votes, or 27.4 percent.

As the top two vote getters Tuesday, Ross and Gillins will face off in the general election, which starts with early voting from May 21 to June 3.

Ross, a Democrat, and Gillins, a Republican, separated themselves from the field in recent weeks with their fundraising machines that brought in more than $140,000 for each candidate. The next closest candidates had about $30,000 for their campaigns.

Also, actions by their respective campaigns and an outside group put added attention on Ross and Gillins.

In an unusual political move, Ross has criticized Gillins, who works for a police union and is married to a police officer, for being too close to the police. Ross said because of that closeness Gillins favors a sales tax increase to pay for more officers, which Ross said he opposes because the money should be available elsewhere.

"Steve Ross doesn't owe his loyalty to the police union, so he can freely say, 'No new taxes. We have enough money to put more police on our streets,'th" a flier mailed by Ross' campaign said.

Ross, 42, general manager of Keleeco Electric, an electrical contracting business co-owned by his wife, said taxes will continue to be his primary issue.

"Folks don't want to pay any more taxes," Ross said.

Gillins, 43, is a legal assistant and operations manager for the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union for Metro Police officers, and she is married to a Metro detective who works as a lobbyist for the department.

Gillins says she does support the sales tax increase, which proposes quarter-cent increases to the rate in July and again in July 2009, but said the sales tax issue is one for the state Legislature and not the city council. The increase was narrowly supported by voters in November.

"The voters know that it's a legislative issue right now," Gillins said, adding that she will be focused on growth and traffic issues during the general election campaign.

Gillins' camp claimed Ross was trying to use the tax issue to divert attention from Ross' 14-year-old domestic violence arrest, which was the focus of two fliers sent to voters just before the primary.

The first flier came from a group called Nevadans Against Domestic Violence, and the second came from Gillins' camp. The pieces revived quotes from a 1993 affidavit from Ross' ex-wife, and recent news articles in which Ross spoke about the incident.

Ross was arrested in 1991 on domestic violence charges but not convicted. He has said he did hit his ex-wife once, and has denied allegations that it occurred more often.

Ross said he expects Gillins to again try to "take advantage" of his past problems. Gillins said she will not raise the issue again.

"From this point forward I have no comment on his personal problems," Gillins said, adding that she OK'd the piece from her campaign "because voters were asking me about it."

Gillins said for the remainder of the campaign she will focus on growth and growth-related issues such as traffic.

Ross said that managing growth is "the next largest issue" behind taxes for Ward 6.

Ward 6 voter Joe Thomson said growth will always be an issue in that part of the city that has seem a residential construction boom in recent years.

Thomson, a UNLV historian, said he voted for Ross because he sees Ross as a "working-class guy who is community oriented."

Derrick Callahan, 43, a plumber and Ward 6 resident, wouldn't say who he voted for, but echoed others concerns about rapid growth.

"An issue for me is slowing down the growth," he said. "I've lived here all my life and I just can't stand it anymore."

The Ward 6 candidates whose races ended Tuesday were:

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