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By Paul Takahashi (contact) 
Friday, March 4, 2011 | 9:09 p.m.
Mayoral debate
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KSNV coverage of Las Vegas mayoral debate, March 4, 2011.
Sun archives
- Candidates for Las Vegas mayor debate behind closed doors (2-23-2011)
- Mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman's motive — the spotlight or Las Vegas' future? (2-23-2011)
- Little disagreement among candidates at mayoral debate (2-22-2011)
- Carolyn Goodman leads by huge margin in first poll of race to succeed her husband (2-5-2011)
- Carolyn Goodman says she, not Oscar, would call shots if elected mayor (2-3-2011)
- Las Vegas mayoral race drawing a crowd (2-3-2011)
- Carolyn Goodman, wife of Oscar Goodman, enters Las Vegas mayor race (2-2-2011)
- Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani announces run for Las Vegas mayor (2-2-2011)
- Retired car salesman enters Las Vegas mayoral race (2-1-2011)
- Steve Ross, Larry Brown file in Las Vegas mayoral race (1-31-2011)
- Fifth candidate files in Las Vegas mayoral race (1-28-2011)
- Las Vegas mayoral race draws three candidates (1-25-2011)
A debate Friday night among six of the 18 candidates for Las Vegas mayor addressed issues from job creation to downtown redevelopment, collective bargaining, school vouchers and the homeless.
The forum was hosted by the Citizen Outreach Foundation and held during its First Friday Nevada event at Stoney’s Rockin’ Country bar. The debate was broadcast by KXNT radio and moderated by talk show host Alan Stock.
Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, businessman Victor Chaltiel, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, retired school administrator Carolyn Goodman, businessman George Harris and city Councilman Steve Ross participated.
The remaining 12 candidates — written off as long shots by the nonprofit group — were not invited.
All of the candidates touted job creation and cutting bureaucratic red tape as top priorities for the mayor.
Goodman — followed in agreement by the others — suggested attracting a motion picture studio to Las Vegas to expand its image as the entertainment capital of the world.
Goodman said she was already in talks with movie industry leaders about studio prospects. “It’s not only good for jobs but good for our students who want to learn and do internships,” she said.
Giunchigliani agreed. “We’re the entertainment capital of the world, and we don’t have a studio,” she said.
On another issue, all of the candidates said they opposed legalizing prostitution in the city.
Goodman, who previously said she would consider creating a red light district, called the issue a moot point because it is “not something that a mayor can change in our lifetime.”
Giunchigliani, previously on the fence, agreed with Goodman and said, “We need to stop the wink and the nod” over prostitution in Las Vegas.
Although education is not within the job description of Las Vegas mayor, candidates continued discussing the Clark County School District and raised new points about the merits of allowing a school voucher program.
Brown, Chaltiel, Harris and Ross said they would support school vouchers to give parents more choices. Goodman and Giunchigliani disagreed.
“Our public school system is the worst in the nation. I’ve been screaming about it for 27 years. Finally, I started the Meadows School to show how it’s done,” Goodman said. “Vouchers fix nothing. (They) are just another Band-Aid. Fix the schools.”
Giunchigliani urged open enrollment instead of vouchers.
“This country was founded on free public education for every child. It’s what made America great,” she said, as some in the crowd booed. “Education is not the mayor's job; it’s everybody’s job.”
Toward the end of the debate, candidates were asked how they would address homelessness in Las Vegas.
Brown said he would give resources to Catholic Charities to “save one human being at a time.”
Others spoke in generalities, citing the large number of veterans and mentally ill among the homeless.
“It’s unbelievable that in the richest country in the world, we can’t take care of the poorest and most deprived people in the world,” Chaltiel said. “It’s a tragedy.”
Harris said he would take a tough stance on “entrepreneurial homeless people.”
He said he would charge beggars with vagrancy, jailing them for a night on the first offense. A repeat offender would then get two weeks, then 90 days behind bars, he said. They would eventually leave Las Vegas, he said.
Goodman said she was going to remain realistic. “This all costs money,” she said. “There is no extra money at this point.”
Question for the writer,
Did Brown, Chaltiel, Harris, and Ross all say the exact same quote about the office having nothing to do with education?
For anyone keeping score, the number of times each candidate was mentioned in the article:
Goodman - 8
Chris G. - 5
Brown - 3
Chaltiel - 3
Harris - 3
Ross - 2
When I was listening, the candidates were all taking turns answering the same questions. Not sure if Chris G. and Mrs. Goodman are just that much more quotable and worth mentioning than the others, or if the coverage is a little slanted in their favor.
I am NOT a teacher basher. What I have become is a bad-student / lousy-parent basher. So what vouchers will do is allow students and families that CARE about behaving in the classroom, learning, and reaching out for help when they need it (preferably from home) to seek out like minded students and schools. Better achieving students will get in to their first choice. Those that don't give a rats a_ _ about it can stay right where they are. If some of the more popular schools are Catholic, so be it.
Now how does this open enrollment work? Same thing, but limited to within CCSD schools? I'm all ears.
DAM,
I just reread the article after reading your post. I have to say that you are RIGHT. The coverage reads like a that of a reporter assigned to cover Carolyn Goodman -- not the actual event. Everything plays out according to what Goodman said first, how others reacted, and how Goodman figured into to other candidates moments.
DAM,
Ross was the only candidate who said the mayor's office is not about education. Because it was confusing the way the sentence was structured, we have updated the story.
The article was written to highlight new issues or changed positions that we have not heard or covered before. Some candidates maintained their platform issues, which we have covered before.
While reporting this way makes it difficult to give each candidate the same number of mentions in any particular article, the Sun strives to make its overall coverage of the mayoral race -- news articles, analyses and candidate profiles -- as equal as possible.
Thanks,
Paul
Clark County already has a two-tier educational system. All who can afford it send their kids to private school. This leaves less support for the Public system and an ever decreasing spiral of support. Public school teachers face insurmountable odds of students coming to school Hungy, Homeless and challenging home situations.
Yet teachers bear the burden of failing students when Politicians and Society want to Pass The Buck.
These are not problems at the Mayors level but at the National Level.
Prostitution will Always be here. A Red-Light district makes sense, no more than a few blocks, tightly regulated and then the revenue raised from it should be used to fight illegal prostitution. Sen. Reid is wrong, look at Amsterdam, London, etc... It's open, taxed and regulated.
Jobs-What comes First? A Job? or An Education?
morons booing education.
someone should ask Harris how much it costs to lock up that homeless person for 90 days. that's a brilliant idea......... psyche
Larry Brown need to be aggressive if he wants to become the next Mayor of Las Vegas. He represented the NW side of town at the City Council and now he represents the same district at the Clark County Commission. Goodluck!!! No to Political Dynasty!!!
Many families do not have the money to pay private schools. An education for our children must be available for all children, not for a selected group.
Why would people in the audience boo Chris for suggesting school for every child? Who are the Boos Birds against education for all children supporting?
The Citizen Outreach Foundation errored by not inviting all the candidates. The title "Citizen and Outreach" make this group a joke by not including all mayoral candidates. President Obama has showed that everyone and anyone on a ballot has a chance to be elected. How can the Citizen Outreach Foundation, or anyone, suggest the other candidates do not matter to us, the voters of the this city by deciding not to include all mayoral candidates? This type of forum conducted by the Citizen Outreach Foundation in the eyes of many Las Vegas residents shows us that we the voters do not matter, with the appearance of a set-up to feature a selected candidate of the foundation's choice.
City Hall will never go to the next level of service to the people with leaders who are limiting our vision and disgarding the voters, and allowing a small group of self-serving power brokers control who is elected and is not elected. Growth in this City is from gaming, not City Hall. When will City Hall start to pull their weight with real leadership?
"We need to stop the wink and the nod over prostitution in Las Vegas."
---------------------------------
Translation: the rampant illegal prostitution in Las Vegas will go on, because legalizing and regulating and taxing it makes Sin City look bad.
*sighs*
I wish Al Swearengen from HBO s "Deadwood" was real, he would make a great mayor of Las Vegas, and he would have the working girls bringing in the tax to keep Sin City out of debt.
"A Red-Light district makes sense, no more than a few blocks, tightly regulated and then the revenue raised from it should be used to fight illegal prostitution. Sen. Reid is wrong, look at Amsterdam, London, etc... It's open, taxed and regulated."
--------------------------------
Alas, we can t do what the western Europeans do in regards to prostitution and health care because it makes sense.
chris giunchiliani had a lot to do with this bull$#!^...
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/20...
school vouchers are pure bull$#!^...
just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic...
just gives folks the option to take their kid out of a sucky school and send them to a less sucky school...
ultimately the amount of the voucher will decline...
and eventually there will be no public education...
that's the frickin end game...
FIX THE DAMN SCHOOLS!!!
isn't it funny how many frickin frauds there are in the world...
sad really...
frauds who enjoyed a good public education...
the best in the world...
some even went to college for free...
and yet...
when they grow up...
and have gotten all they will need from the system...
how they turn on it...
how they want to destroy it...
frickin frauds...
selfish little children...
who ironically make pathetic arguments that others are somehow gaming the system...
what a frickin joke...
it will destroy the community...
the population will shrink...
crime will rise...
i for one will not shed a damn tear when that crime comes knocking on their doors...
they will just finally be getting what they deserve...
i just hope it is sufficiently violent...
Let's get real and stop talking stupid. Make a red light district and tax the sales.
The city needs the money, women need the jobs, and the police can find better things to do.
Why do we continue to lie about reality?
@vegasvegas: what do you know about carolyn goodman? why is she an "elitist"? seriously? is it because she started the meadows school? i work at the meadows school, and i know mrs. goodman fairly well, and she's hardly an elitist (is it because she's wealthy or her husband is part of the power structure that makes you so anrgy?) -- she's treated both families and faculty and staff of meadows like her own family. is she "elitist" because she spent the last 25 years building the best academic high school in the state (along with a few small school state championships in every sport)? while certainly there are plenty of kids who are wealthy who go there, they certainly had no choice in being born wealthy, right? are they elitist, too? there are scholarship kids at meadows. the school has done well to "diversify."
this claim that goodman is elitist is such a ridiculous attack on an otherwise viable option for mayor of a town that seems to do a whole lot of failing on its own. i'd hardly call a woman who saw a hole in education in clark county 25 years ago and made it her life's calling to fix it, and succeeded, an "elitist." she had kids on her brain. helping kids. what an "elitist" argument to insinuate that by only helping the "poor" one is doing "good work."
just don't vote for her, vegasvegas. or, better yet, before that even, build a better argument.
I repeat...look at the community leaders, business, political...
These products of modern education are possibly the POOREST leaders in history.
The current education processes have produced weak-minded, easily manipulated people, who think that pounding round pegs into square holes...is a solution.
If this is the BEST that the educational systems that can yield...shut them all down.
Rethink, reshape & retool the educational system.
What? There is a FLAW in my logic?
Anyone, who thinks that doing SOMETHING is better, than doing NOTHING...
...should take another look at the Sand-in-the-brain budget proposal.
It is limiting and discriminatory to only have a select group debating in this forum.
There needs to be an area for LEGAL brothels, strictly regulated and taxed. Models for such exists.
Education is about training the citizenry for military service (as needed by our nation, in time of crisis). This is FREE, and subjects youth to military service or government service in the USA. If you desire a superior, well-enriched, highly parental involved education, then private education is your ticket. Therein is the difference. Public is basic, folks. It is adequate, builds a foundation. Families put added-value to it by being involved, doing family activities that are "enriching" full of realia, literacy, and higher level thinking. Public schools can only provide so much.
Another debate that excludes a majority of the candidates.
Another newspaper article that attempts to promote one candidate.
This sort of protectionism only dumbs down the place even more.
As Moses said SET MY PEOPLE FREE! Harry should retire to Deseret.
I agree with DAM.
While I appreciate the reporter updating his story, nearly every article The Sun has produced on the mayoral election has focused on only one or sometimes two candidates. Even when its a forum, such as this one, where multiple candidates were giving answers to the same questions.
We count on The Sun to report what happens at these events, not to decide for us what's important.
If you want to see more about who Chris G is, visit http://chrisglive.com
this is all you need to know about chris g...
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/20...
she is simply not capable of looking after the public purse...
period...
end of story...
As Lewis Carroll said in Alice in Wonderland, it gets curioser and curioser. I am referring to the election process of preselecting certain politicians in office for the voters. The press ignored the Veterans in Politics forum at City Hall which invited all candidates. Where is the coverage for that. This is dangerous for democracy since the press can influence the outcome of elections.
The voters I spoke to don't want someone who was in office and did nothing for them and will do nothing to change the direction of the City, highest in foreclosures, highest in unemployment. Yeah, we're doing great, so lets put one of those politicians in as Mayor. check out one who is being ignored, the most educated with specific plans to turn the City back from the cliff it is surely headed towards.
www.friendsofmarlene.org www.friendsofmarlene.com
hear interviews posted on www.knpr.org
www.stevewarkinthemorning.com on 2/28/11 8AM
Ah Chris Giunchigliani weren't you just recently maxed out of the State Legislature? Where you spent money we didn't have? Where you failed to fund PERS but kept hiring more state employees? Where you kept over-funding K-16 without teaching our children to read? Where you passed collective bargaining legislation so City and County employees could ramp up salaries 135% of national government employee salaries? Where session after session you rehashed the same old subjects without resolving any?
Careful LV Sun, your bias is showing - again.