Vegas council candidates eschew stadium, say other issues will sway voters

Forget the stadium.

Cops, jobs, parks, sidewalks, grocery stores, even sewers — these are the issues many Las Vegas City Council hopefuls say will be on voters’ minds as they head to the polls this spring.

The protracted hubbub surrounding proposed public subsidies for a $200 million, 24,000-seat downtown soccer stadium that’s now apparently dead might help a few challengers and hurt some incumbents set to appear on ballots in Wards 1, 3 and 5.

But the question of whether to spend taxpayer dollars on the stadium venue will figure most prominently in the mayor’s race, which pits Mayor Pro Tem and staunch stadium subsidy opponent Stavros Anthony against Mayor Carolyn Goodman, the project’s most prominent backer.

Weeks of litigation and political hand-wringing over the stadium issue could play an almost equally important role in two other stadium supporters’ re-election campaigns, though you wouldn’t know it from speaking to the incumbents.

Stadium supporters Bob Coffin and Ricki Barlow downplayed the project’s impact on their upcoming re-election bids. Each of those nonpartisan races pits a Democratic incumbent against at least one conservative stadium subsidy foe. Coffin’s includes no fewer than four such challengers.

Not even longtime councilwoman and stadium subsidy foe Lois Tarkanian looks likely to get a free pass on the issue. She faces substitute teacher and City Council gadfly Raymond Fletcher, who hastened to point out that “we wouldn’t be in this situation” if not for Tarkanian’s vote to take another look at the project late last year.

Sitting council members and challengers on both sides of the stadium argument did manage to agree that a municipal primary election set for April 7 will not be a straight-up referendum on the topic.

With early voting for that election set to begin March 21, they expect each local race to hinge on a host of much less glamorous issues.

WARD 3

In Coffin’s Ward 3 — which includes around 97,800 residents north of Sahara Avenue between Nellis Boulevard and Interstate 15 — those issues start literally at ground level.

Coffin and two other hopefuls who spoke with the Las Vegas Review-Journal said sidewalks — which don’t exist in many older neighborhoods on the east side of town — would be at or near the top of their priority list if elected in June.

Megan Heryet, one of the four conservative anti-stadium subsidy candidates opposing Coffin in the nonpartisan municipal elections, said she had run into plenty of residents upset about crumbling sidewalks, lax code enforcement and graffiti problems over several weeks on the campaign trail.

If elected, the one-time state Assembly candidate said she would take a second look at the city’s public works budget to ensure Ward 3 is getting its fair share of infrastructure dollars.

Coffin, too, has expressed dismay over what he sees as the city’s ambivalence toward parks and infrastructure in the ward.

The longtime former state legislator said some $25 million in parks funds earmarked for the ward were what motivated him to support a the controversial publicly subsidized stadium deal in the first place.

Coffin, 72, ran on a parks platform when he emerged from a bruising municipal race in 2011 and said he is running on the same issue this time around.

“None of my opponents have ever held office, and experience counts,” Coffin said. “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done here. We’ve built Stupak Park from scratch and helped other underserved areas. I’ve been able to get over $3 million in grants, specifically for sidewalks.

“You’ll hear my opponents talk a lot about the stadium and not much else,” he added. “We’re doing the best we can with a police agency we can’t control, and we don’t have enough cops.”

Coffin, an insurance broker who has served four years on the City Council, has picked up endorsements from city police, firefighters and the Southern Nevada Central Labor Council. He has raised, by his own estimate, upward of $100,000 in campaign cash in the run-up to early voting.

Heryet, 34, recently won backing from the local chapter of Veterans in Politics International. She guesses she has raised around $10,000 in personal and outside donations to fuel her campaign.

Three other contenders in Ward 3 are first-time candidates running largely self-funded campaigns, with registered Democrat Alicia Garcia-Herrera, 40, building perhaps the most visible rookie election effort. The former North Las Vegas court translator and stadium subsidy opponent hopes a campaign focused on economic development — along with ties to the ward’s majority Hispanic community — can help her push through the primary.

Conservative-leaning political newcomers Eric Krattiger, 47, and Hart Fleischhauer, 52, say Coffin’s stance on the stadium proposal helped draw them into the race. If elected, Krattiger, a real estate agent, said he wants to take another look at the city’s recently revamped deal with ambulance service providers at American Medical Response.

Fleischhauer, a former California community college professor, said he would take steps to resurrect a tent city for the homeless torn down by then-Mayor Oscar Goodman in 2002.

Perennial candidate Carlo Poliak, 74, launched failed bids for a seat on the Clark County Commission and in the U.S. Senate before throwing his hat into the upcoming municipal primary race. He, like Fleischhauer, would like to see an increased focus on homeless issues.

WARD 5

Cops and jobs are two of the issues that helped get Councilman Barlow elected in 2011. They are the same two issues Randy Voyard hopes will help him boot Barlow out of office.

Voyard, 45, a registered Republican and stadium subsidy foe, lost to Barlow by double-digit points in Ward 5’s municipal primary race four years ago.

The physical therapy assistant said he has learned a lot since then. He doubts Barlow, a registered Democrat and staunch stadium supporter, has learned nearly as much over the same time period.

He said Barlow simply hasn’t delivered on promised public safety and economic development improvements in West Las Vegas.

“Just drive around and look at all the empty real estate, the abandoned buildings,” Voyard said. “I think the City Council is looking for fresh ideas.

“A stadium is not what makes a city world class, but I think with good ideas, we can make it a better city.”

Barlow, a former City Council liaison and legislative aide in the U.S. Senate, has won endorsements from city police and firefighters’ unions. He figures he has raised around $200,000 for his re-election campaign.

The two-term councilman pointed to Food4Less, a BuyLow market and a recently approved Starbucks as evidence of some of the economic growth he helped bring to West Las Vegas in his time at City Hall.

Barlow, 43, isn’t worried about the political ramifications of his support for an oft-maligned, taxpayer-aided downtown soccer venue, despite drawing an opponent who has made the issue central to his campaign platform.

The demise of the stadium, he said, won’t stymie promised future growth on the horizon in Ward 5, which includes more than 98,000 largely low-income, mostly minority residents north of Charleston Boulevard between Eastern Avenue and Rancho Drive.

“A number of people I’ve spoken to had concerns (about the stadium),” Barlow said. “Zero wanted to throw me out of office over it.”

WARD 1

Longtime Councilwoman Tarkanian might have the only legitimate claim to a re-election campaign unblemished by Las Vegas’ battle over a multimillion-dollar stadium subsidy.

The two-term city leader and wife of late UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian had to put her campaign on hold for several weeks after her husband’s death Feb. 11.

Even now, Tarkanian, 80, said she plans to run a “low-key” campaign, one geared mostly toward a long-sought medical school on 10 acres near University Medical Center on Charleston Boulevard.

“I’m running on obtaining a medical school in our medical district,” she said. “It’s helpful to the city, to the university and it brings jobs. … (Applied Analysis principal) Jeremy Aguero says it will bring in $1.1 billion (in economic impact) within 10 years.

“There are a lot of things Raymond (Fletcher) and I agree on. I feel like I’ll do a better job because I have the experience.”

Tarkanian, a registered Democrat and former Clark County School Board member, has won endorsements from city police and firefighters’ unions as well as from a handful of trade unions. She couldn’t say how much cash had recently been added to the $1,000 in donations her campaign reported in January.

Fellow Democrat Fletcher, the councilwoman’s lone opponent, said there are plenty of issues that could use attention in his neck of the woods besides a medical school — not the least of which are dozens of vacant homes and “funky,” possibly leaky or busted sewer pipes at several Ward 1 intersections.

Fletcher, 38, who made unsuccessful runs for City Council and state Assembly seats in his home state of Indiana, has geared his campaign toward fixing neighborhoods in the ward, which includes more than 100,700 residents north of Sahara Avenue between Rancho and Buffalo Drive.

He knows beating Tarkanian won’t be an easy task.

“I know this is going to be an uphill battle,” Fletcher said, “but I’d rather fail in front of a million people than not try.”

Las Vegas is the most populous city in Nevada. Those elected to lead the city are considered full-time city employees.

City Council members serve four-year terms and are paid $76,964 annually.

Early voting in Las Vegas’ municipal primary election starts Saturday and ends April 3.

Any candidate who picks up more than 50 percent of votes in one of the city’s three primary races will win outright, averting a citywide election scheduled for June 2.

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Find him on Twitter:@JamesDeHaven.