LOOKING IN ON: THE SUBURBS

Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 | 7:26 a.m.

Angelo Carvalho hoped to be headed to Carson City this month as a rookie assemblyman.

Instead, last Thursday he began an 18-month mission in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Carvalho, 39, who has been in the Army Reserve for more than 17 years, will be part of a military police unit training Iraqis.

It will be a big change from heading North Las Vegas Planning Commission meetings or running his auto detailing shop.

"It's going to be rough," said Carvalho, who has a wife and two young sons at home. "But I tell everybody I believe in God and country, and if my country needs me I'll go."

He plans to keep a journal on his mission and hopes to return safely in mid-2008. And Carvalho, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the state Legislature last November, won't forget about his hometown or its issues in the meantime.

"I'll be back just in time to run for City Council," he said.

Metro Officer Thomas Wagner will challenge longtime Henderson City Councilman Andy Hafen for the Ward 2 seat.

Wagner, a detective in the missing person's detail, has worked in the department for nearly two decades.

Hafen, a retired Metro Police officer, has been a councilman since 1987 and will be seeking his fifth term.

During a recent North Las Vegas City Council meeting, David Shakespeare found an unusual way to tell the council of his concerns about the homeless and to ask for a new shelter.

"We just need a place to get drunk and get out of the way," Shakespeare said.

Homeless alcoholics in North Las Vegas have been struggling to find places to sleep, he said. One area shelter recently started giving those wanting to stay the night breath tests, and anyone who had been drinking was banned.

North Las Vegas City Attorney Sean McGowen died last week after a long battle with lymphoma. McGowen, 54, was a former state deputy attorney general who had served as city attorney since 2000.