Bulging NLV’s fix-it list for hopefuls

By Mike Trask

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.

Being the second-fastest growing city in the country speaks for itself.

But perhaps an even better indicator of the burgeoning size of North Las Vegas is that 2004 maps already are useless in the northern sections of the city.

Ward 4 overlaps much of that area of rapid growth, and the four-candidate race for the City Council seat representing it has seen each of the contenders try to convince voters that he is best suited to meet the challenges and opportunities posed by the population surge.

Councilwoman Shari Buck faces three challengers in the April 3 primary. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, the top two vote-getters will compete in a June general election.

The city's other council contest in Ward 2 has two candidates - longtime Councilman William Robinson and challenger John Stephens III. As a result, there will be no primary, with the election to be decided in June.

All of this year's challengers decided to run after voters overwhelmingly chose in November to change council elections to ward-only contests. Previously, elections were citywide, with candidates being required to live only in the wards they represent.

The council election will be the first test of the claims and counter-claims heard in last fall's campaign on the proposed electoral change.

In that ballot battle, opponents warned that a switch to ward-only elections would divide the city by encouraging candidates - and officeholders - to focus more on parochial concerns than citywide issues.

Those favoring the change, however, said it would make it possible for candidates to wage viable campaigns without the need for large treasuries, thereby leveling the playing field with incumbents. Coming into this year, Buck had a substantial financial head start on her opponents, having raised nearly $90,000 for her reelection campaign.

"At first when it was at-large it would be difficult to be an opponent," said Ward 4 candidate Jo Cato, a planning commissioner. "We don't have a war chest."

Ward 4 candidate Richard Cherchio, a retired postal worker and the organizer of the North Las Vegas Alliance of Homeowners Associations and Concerned Citizens, had urged voters last fall to make the change.

Buck, though, seems unconcerned that the change will knock her out of office. "I guess my assumption is that the same people that normally vote will come out," she said.

Buck and her opponents cite public safety as one of the top issues in the city of 200,000, a number projected to soar to 500,000 over the next two decades.

Although North Las Vegas' image on crime has been an unenviable one for most of the recent past, the master-planned communities being built north of the Las Vegas Beltway are changing that as rapidly as they are changing the city's demographics.

Still, city officials lament that they cannot fill police officer positions quickly enough, despite the job's pay.

A recent Sun story showed that more than one-third of North Las Vegas police officers earned more than $100,000 in 2006, including overtime pay.

Buck said the city can afford more officers but hasn't been able to find quality applicants.

"We don't have as big of a problem as other entities," Buck said. "Our problem has been playing catch-up and now we're competing with Metro and Henderson at the same time, which makes it difficult."

Her opponents, however, are less tolerant of the overtime issue and, in particular, with some of the six-figure payments to corrections officers.

"A jailer is being paid more than $192,000," said candidate Deborah Lewis, a homemaker and self-described community activist. "We can better use those dollars to hire more cops."

Another top topic in the race is traffic, a headache throughout the valley. In North Las Vegas, Craig Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard are especially chaotic during rush hour.

"You could add bus turnout lanes," Lewis said. "Every resident has been stuck behind a bus on Craig or MLK. You also have to complete the 215 beltway. You need to finish what you started."

Buck said the council has been working with other entities in trying to alleviate some of the crunch. She also said the city needs to do a better job of coordinating alternative routes when closing smaller streets for repairs or construction.

The truth, though, may be that there is little North Las Vegas can do to ease the traffic pains that come with its growth.

"I really don't know what we could do in the short term," Cherchio said. "The reality of it is the only thing we could and should do is look at the root causes of the traffic. That's the boom in development. Anything else is just a Band-Aid solution."

Buck, 46, has served on the council for eight years and lived her entire life in North Las Vegas.

"We've gone from a city that when I was a teenager young men wouldn't drive across town to take me on a date, to a city that has a great reputation," she said.

Cherchio, a 60-year-old retired postal worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., has portrayed himself as the common man of North Las Vegas while campaigning tirelessly for several months.

He worked with the police advisory board in creating a new nuisance code in the city, endearing him to residents fed up with graffiti and broken-down cars on front lawns.

"People want to be involved," he said. "The purpose of my running is to make sure the residents will be part of the decisions."

Cherchio said the council too often bows to the wishes of developers.

"The city needs to take a tougher stand with property owners and developers," he said. "Before, during and after construction."

Cato, a local magazine publisher, also is pushing sensible growth, noting that North Las Vegas, like elsewhere in Southern Nevada, has a pressing need for affordable housing.

Cato, 42, believes developing lower-cost communities will draw more businesses, such as restaurants and retail stores, that residents want.

Her campaign, she said, is a mission to get a fresh voice in the city.

"We don't have enough citizen input," she said. "That's a pet peeve."

Lewis captured public attention several years ago when she opposed the construction of a casino at the Craig Ranch Golf Course. Plans for the businesses fell apart - not entirely because of Lewis - and now the course will become a 130-acre park.

"I am not opposed to casinos," she said. "I worked in them for many years. It's the placement of them. If it's in a planned community, the residents can choose to live next to them."

Lewis, 49, also has opposed the proliferation of payday loan shops in the city.