Buck, Robinson advance to runoff in North Las Vegas mayoral race

North Las Vegas’ next mayor will be either Shari Buck or William Robinson, both North Las Vegas City Council members.

The two candidates learned late Tuesday that they will advance to the June 2 general election.

“It was a great day today,” said Buck, who garnered 31 percent of the vote. “I’m going to take a couple days off and then it’s back to campaigning on Monday.”

“We figured voters would receive our message and they did,” said Robinson, who got 30 percent of the vote. “It’s going to be a great race between me and a colleague of mine.”

Councilwoman Stephanie Smith took third, with 21 percent of votes. Ned Thomas, a former North Las Vegas planning commissioner, got 16 percent. Street preacher John 3:16 Cook took home 2 percent.

Buck, 48, is in the middle of her third term on the council.

Robinson, the city’s 69-year-old mayor pro tem, has been on the City Council since 1983. He was prohibited from running for an eighth term because of term limits adopted by the city in the late 1990s.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon could not run again because of term limits. He is running for governor in 2010.

Either Buck or Robinson will take the mayoral reins at a difficult time for North Las Vegas, the fourth most populous city in Nevada, with about 217,000 people. The city, which like other municipalities has seen declining revenue, has trimmed about $16 million from its 2008-09 budget.

On Tuesday evening, City Manager Gregory Rose said he couldn’t rule out layoffs after the city’s largest employee union rejected a proposal to forgo cost-of-living raises.

Buck said she hopes layoffs are unnecessary, but “we have to keep the city fiscally sound.”

Robinson, who learned about the union’s rejection of the proposal from a reporter Tuesday night, said he would be meeting with the Teamsters union and with Rose about the situation “to see if there is a happy medium.”

Also on Tuesday, City Councilman Robert Eliason was elected to his third term representing Ward 1.

Because the 46-year-old councilman won more than 50 percent of the votes in the primary, he was elected outright and will not have to compete in the general election.

Eliason received 54 percent of the votes. Rolando Cruz got 29 percent, while Jeffrey Eggeman got 17 percent.

A longtime resident of North Las Vegas, Eliason was first elected in 2001. He chairs the city’s Redevelopment Agency and serves on the Regional Transportation Commission and the Clark County Regional Flood Control District’s board of directors.

In North Las Vegas’s Ward 3, candidates Anita Wood and Angelo Carvalho led a field of six and will advance to the general election.

Wood, 45, a stay-at-home mom and former planning commissioner, earned about 24 percent of the votes.

Carvalho, a 41-year-old small-business owner, Army reservist and chairman of the city’s planning commission, took about 23 percent of votes.

Incumbent Municipal Court Judge Sean Hoeffgen also will advance to the general election along with attorney Marsha Kimble-Simms.

Hoeffgen, 40, was first elected in 2005 and is vying for a second term. He received about 36 percent of the vote Tuesday.

Kimble-Simms, 48, is an attorney with Simms Law Firm. She also got about 36 percent of the vote.

A third candidate, 33-year-old Christopher Cannon, was eliminated after receiving 28 percent of the vote.

Overall, it was a sleepy municipal election in North Las Vegas.

Only 8,970 people cast votes in the election, or 11.7 percent of registered active voters in the city.

Voters were hard to find in the city on Tuesday afternoon. Election workers at Bridger Middle School had seen just 45 of them by 1:30 p.m.

“We’re doing the best we can to handle the crowds,” one worker deadpanned. “It’s been overwhelming.”

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.