Candidates for North Las Vegas mayor confront challenges

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories previewing local municipal races for the April 2 primary election.

John Lee is back where he started.

Sixteen years after first winning a trip to the Assembly, and only months removed from a failed bid to retake his District 1 state Senate seat, Lee has returned to North Las Vegas with his heart set on City Hall.

The former state senator’s bid to unseat Mayor Shari Buck sees him join two political newcomers — Mojave High School teacher Michael Hunter and self-employed consultant Sharon Belger — on an April 2 primary ballot to decide the top two contenders for June 4’s general election runoff.

Lee, the owner of Vegas Plumbing Service, made his name in business before entering politics, part of a background he hopes will lend itself to a patch for the city’s foundering municipal budget.

“My real thought, as a business owner, is that I wouldn’t put (Buck) in charge of my business for 30 days,” the 58-year-old Rancho High School graduate said.

Lee said he had considered backing one of three or four other mayoral hopefuls before throwing his own hat in the ring.

“It became obvious (Buck) had no leadership, no vision, no ideas. ... My town was telling me, ‘We don’t need your money; we need your time.’ ”

Lee said he wouldn’t support further cuts to city staff. More than 1,000 employees of the state’s third-largest city have been laid off since 2009 in an effort to close budget gaps once estimated at more than $30 million.

Lee also couldn’t find much room to streamline other city expenses, but suggested solutions still might be found on the revenue side of the ledger.

“I know 55 percent of the region isn’t developed, so we’ve got to start working on infrastructure, and we’ve got to start thinking regional, talking up the city as a place to do business,” Lee said.

“Right now, we’re about as low as we can go (with cuts) and still keep the doors open. We have .88 cops for every 1,000 residents, compared to a national average of two (per 1,000 residents), so we’re basically saying, ‘Come to North Las Vegas, but we can’t keep you safe.’ ”

MAYOR SHARI BUCK

Buck entered the race having survived barbs from more than just her primary opponents.

In three years on the job, North Las Vegas’ first elected female mayor has faced down a brief 2011 recall attempt and, along with the City Council, weathered an avalanche of union criticism over the city’s decision to suspend municipal employee contracts in a “fiscal emergency” declared late last summer.

Buck points to 4 percent gains in the city’s ending fund balance achieved under her tenure and said the mayor’s office remains focused on promoting growth in the region .

The first-term incumbent also waved off criticism surrounding an estimated $12.3 million in suspended union pay raises.

She believes if the city stays the course on pay freezes, further upticks in business tax revenue will be enough to stave off any additional layoffs.

“We’re now seeing this upward momentum of new businesses coming in,” the 50-year-old former city councilwoman said. “Just the other night we had the ViaWest data center ribbon cutting. They’re employing 200 people, and they’ll be looking to expand. TJ Maxx has expanded, and the hospital’s looking to expand.”

Last week, Lee called Buck “ethically bankrupt” in campaign fliers.

Buck’s campaign hit back with mailers that characterize the mayor’s seat as Lee’s “third choice” for public office.

“He’s looking for a job. This is the third seat in a year he’s trying for,” Buck, a Republican, said of her Democratic opponent.

The mayor’s seat is nonpartisan.

SHARON BELGER

The city’s ongoing economic woes, which culminated in a 2011 brush with municipal bankruptcy, prompted more than just Lee’s entrance into the race.

Campaign first-timer Belger, the former owner of Mystery Adventures interactive tours, cites the city’s budget crunch in her campaign platform, taking umbrage with North Las Vegas leaders’ handling of a city “on the precipice of financial ruin.”

Belger, who has no previous government experience and has attended only two City Council meetings, suggests a complete retooling of the city’s image, right down to its official slogan and logo.

She hopes to create a small-business incubator program to work with local chambers of commerce on efforts to attract new investment and boost city tax coffers.

Belger also promotes a bottom-up review of city spending on cars, travel and administrative expenses.

“We need real significant change,” the 41-year-old mother of two said Friday.

MICHAEL HUNTER

High school teacher Hunter, like Belger, has never held public office. He also has never attended a City Council meeting, but said he is none too pleased about city expenditures, especially the new $130 million City Hall.

Hunter holds the mayor’s office at least partially responsible for the city’s economic malaise.

He said the rest of the blame rests with a persistently stale economy and wasteful spending.

“Just look at the new Taj Mahal we’ve got downtown,” Hunter, 51, said of the city’s new City Hall. “The mayor’s getting $600 a month, that’s $7,200 a year, for her car, so we’ve got to get rid of that.”

Hunter, Lee and fellow newcomer Belger all lamented layoffs associated with last year’s closure of the North Las Vegas jail.

The city’s prisoners are now being kept in the Las Vegas jail.

Each of those candidates joined Buck in giving top priority to reopening the jail, along with browned-out city recreation centers, libraries and fire stations, when revenues stabilize over the next four-year mayoral term.

Only Hunter and Buck remain open to a proposed usage fee meant to offset an estimated $500,000 in annual maintenance costs at the city’s 150-acre Craig Ranch Park.

Lee, who is “totally against” the park fee proposal, took a similarly harsh view of an effort to keep thousands of underwater North Las Vegas mortgages afloat through the city’s use of eminent domain.

The proposal, presented by San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners at a City Council meeting, would allow the city to seize a bad home loan in much the same way it condemns a blighted property.

Under the plan, city officials would pay mortgage investors less than face value to take on a troubled home loan while representatives from Mortgage Resolution Partners restructure the homeowner’s debts into a new mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

The company would charge the city a per loan advisory fee and take a cut on the difference between the original bad mortgage and its current market value.

Buck on Friday said she was “curious” about the proposal, but hadn’t decided whether to support it.

Early voting for next month’s primary gets under way Saturday and goes until March 29.

Mayoral race candidates are chosen at-large by all eligible North Las Vegas voters.

The mayor earns $47,889.14 a year.