Ross gets win, two pull away in Ward 4

Published Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 8:09 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 10:07 p.m.

One Las Vegas City Council race was decided in Tuesday’s primary election. The other contested race, for Ward 4, will be decided with the top two vote-getters advancing to the June 2 general election.

Incumbent Steve Ross pulled ahead in the Las Vegas City Council Ward 6 race to win 54.8 percent of the vote against challenger attorney Jennifer Taylor.

Ross, secretary-treasurer of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council, said public safety and solving the effects of the foreclosure crisis will be his top priorities.

"It feels great," Ross said of the win Tuesday night. "The voters have spoken, everybody has eaten all the cake and I'm saying goodbye to all my supporters."

After polls in the Ward's 68 precincts closed at 7 p.m., Ross had won with 2,351 votes, or nearly 55 percent. Taylor had 1,942 votes.

Taylor couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday night.

In the Ward 4 race, Metro Police Capt. Stavros Anthony and city planning commission Chairman Glenn Trowbridge will face off.

The winner of the general election will be seated June 17. The seat was vacated by Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown. The winner will represent about 97,000 residents, which includes the master-planned community of Sun City, the Desert Shores neighborhood and a small part of Summerlin.

Trowbridge, a Las Vegas Planning Commission member for about four years, said he was pleased with the results, even after spending less on the election than the competition.

"I'm going to stay with the message I've had all along, which will be balancing the budget by determining priorities," he said, adding that he will deliver services efficiently.

Trowbridge said he won't support new city hall construction if it's going to cause taxpayers in Ward 4 to spend more money. Trowbridge raised $120,000 for his campaign through March 31, spending about $85,000 of that amount on advertising and consultation fees.

Trowbridge resigned as executive director of the Labor Management Cooperation Committee, a nonprofit group funded by the Nevada Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to run for office full-time.

He was Clark County’s personnel director for seven years, and was the county’s parks and recreation director for 17 years. He took advantage of the county’s buy-out program when he retired from the parks post in 2001.

Anthony has been with Metro for 28 years. He has a doctorate in sociology from UNLV. If elected to the council, he said, he would retire from Metro Police and step down from the Board of Regents.

"We'll both get our message to voters in the next two months," Anthony said of the two-man race.

He raised $205,000 for his campaign through March 31, spending $172,000 on advertising and consultation fees. He said he is "definitely against" new city hall construction.

The votes were also divided among four other candidates: high school English teacher Sam Christos; county employee Gary Hosea; flight attendant Yvonne Karim and health advocate Terrie Price.