Sam Morris

Nevada Assemblywoman Valerie Weber and Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown, candidates in County Commission District C, get help preparing for a debate at KLVX Channel 10. Weber wants a county office of faith-based and community initiatives; Brown, greater local regulation and inspection of health care facilities.

By Joe Schoenmann (contact)

Tue, Oct 21, 2008 (2 a.m.)

The contrast in the styles of Clark County Commission candidates Larry Brown and Valerie Weber came out near the end of their televised debate last week.

When they got the opportunity to ask each other a question, the poker-faced Brown declined.

Weber, wide-eyed and smiling, asked why Brown, a former minor league baseball player, couldn’t get a professional team, baseball or otherwise, to move to Las Vegas. And how could he let the 51s move to Albuquerque?

Brown, who worked a community relations gig for the 51s during baseball season, appeared annoyed by the question. But calmly he answered that as a Las Vegas city councilman, he, personally, never pushed to bring a team here. Brown added that Las Vegas will have another minor league team next year even though the Dodgers’ affiliate moved to Albuquerque.

After the relatively tame 15-minute taping ended, Brown had a much more blunt reaction. Weber’s attempt to play hardball, he said, amounted to “a goofball question.” He added: “I felt like saying, ‘You’re an idiot.’ ”

Weber later countered that landing a pro sports team for the city was one of Brown’s goals. “He failed to accomplish that and it needed to be pointed out.”

Voters on Nov. 4 are expected to send either Weber or Brown to the big league of local government in Nevada, as commissioner for Clark County District C. The district’s current commissioner, Chip Maxfield, has decided not to seek reelection.

The district includes the rapidly growing northwest valley along U.S. 95, taking in Summerlin and encompassing Mount Charleston and Indian Springs.

Two other candidates are on the ballot — Libertarian Emily Klapproth, 22, and Warren Ross Markowitz, 40, a lawyer and restaurant owner who is running as the Independent American Party candidate. But their campaigns have been virtually nonexistent and they don’t have the name recognition or the track record in elected office that Weber and Brown have.

Weber, 53, a Republican, has been a state assemblywoman since 2003, and was the primary sponsor of roughly two dozen bills in three sessions. In 2007, three of her bills passed. One prevented state officials from using emergency powers to confiscate lawfully owned guns. Another made it a felony to be involved in an organized retail theft ring, and the third added definitions to line-item figures on tax bills.

Bills that failed included one aimed at improving some medical care for state inmates and one to establish the “Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” in the governor’s office to help low-income and at-risk children and adults.

She said she now wants to bring that latter idea to the county, perhaps not surprising given that she has a bachelor’s degree from Biola University, a Christian school in Southern California.

In 2005, Weber bills that failed included one that would have stiffened laws against organized animal fighting and another regarding certification of tattoo artists.

One bill that passed was to collect DNA from all convicted felons. But Weber’s original included funding; the version that passed has the funding stripped out of it.

“Shame on the state for doing that,” Weber said.

As for Brown, 51, one thing’s certain about him: None of the flamboyance of Las Vegas’ mayor rubbed off even though he has worked with Oscar Goodman on the council since 1997. Supporters say Brown’s political forte has been his attention to the nitty-gritty of the city budget.

The 1979 Harvard grad says he now wants to “attack” the county budget and “try to put into place strong policies to make government more efficient.”

Skeptics, however, say his political ambition was the reason he was the only member of the council to vote against the mayor’s and council’s pay raises in November.

And last week, the Culinary Union, which usually supports Democratic candidates, distributed a flier that called his reputation as a fiscal watchdog a sham. It cited his vote to give $50,000 in taxpayer dollars to a strip club to subsidize the club’s new neon sign.

The club was eligible for the money because it is within the city’s redevelopment district.

The flier also singled out the city’s sale of downtown land at roughly 50 percent off to CIM Group, which is planning to redevelop the empty Lady Luck casino. The city sold land estimated to be worth almost $60 million for roughly $25 million.

Brown said he is “very comfortable” with that vote. “If we can get CIM moving forward, that would be a great sign in these times to reenergize and revitalize downtown,” he said. “And we have to offer incentives.”

As a county commissioner, he says, he would “increase local regulation and inspection of health care facilities,” increase regulation of “unscrupulous lending practices ... that put thousands of Nevada families out of their homes,” and “fight against spot zoning in the northwest and encourage infill development.”

He also said he would work full-time as a commissioner, as he has at city hall.

Weber says she would too. She owns an organizational development company that “creates solid solutions for business improvement,” according to her election Web site. But she said that business is “dormant.” She also teaches organizational behavior and management at the University of Phoenix, the school from which she holds a master’s degree in organizational management.

As a commissioner she would work to “cut unnecessary county spending and pass the savings on to individuals and small businesses,” according to her Web site.

She also said that to protect neighborhoods she will “oppose developers’ efforts to locate low-rent apartments in our neighborhoods.”