Easy win for Henderson City Council incumbents

Voters were scarce and so was the drama in Henderson, where incumbent City Councilwomen Debra March and Gerri Schroder each grabbed enough votes to win their races outright Tuesday.

Schroder fought off Las Vegas police officer Thomas Wagner and three minor challengers to win her second four-year term in Ward 1 with 54 percent of the vote.

March also grabbed 54 percent to win the three-way race in Ward 2, where she bested former city construction manager John Simmons and grass-roots candidate Kevinn Donovan.

In the one City Council contest without an incumbent, Henderson Planning Commission Chairman Sam Bateman and former Police Chief Mike Mayberry easily advanced to the general election.

They will square off on June 7 for the right to replace Steve Kirk, who is being forced out by term limits after representing Ward 4 for 12 years.

Schroder said she was humbled by her outright win.

"I'm always humbled by the support I get in the community. But you know me, I work hard. I think the hard work paid off with this result," she said.

Schroder thinks she also may have gotten a late boost from an attack ad Wagner sent out that she said "crossed the line."

The mailer labeled Schroder as a poor financial manager because she and her husband are on the verge of losing their home to foreclosure.

After it went out, she said, strangers called her to voice their support. "A lot of people were upset because it was an attack on my family," Schroder said.

March and Simmons waged their own expensive and sometimes ugly battle that included highway billboards, stacks of mailers and the first television ads ever seen in a Henderson council race.

The win was a first for March, who was appointed -- not elected -- to the council in 2009 after then-Councilman Andy Hafen moved into the mayor's seat.

"I have been elected," March said with a laugh after the final results came in Tuesday night.

March and her campaign team thought there was a possibility the race could be decided in the primary, so "we were working especially hard to make that happen," she said.

March considers the election results to be a stamp of approval for the city's current leadership. "I think the community has spoken," she said.

Only the Ward 4 race remains to be decided.

In the run-up to the primary, Bateman and Mayberry exchanged blows in a series of campaign mailers and then posted similar numbers on election night, Bateman with more than 30 percent of the vote and Mayberry with nearly 27 percent.

The two men each spent at least five times as much as the four other candidates in the Ward 4 race combined.

Roughly 12 percent of the city's 124,647 active voters took part in the election, despite attempts by the Henderson city clerk's office to make the process as easy as possible.

Four years ago, the city stopped using assigned polling locations, opting instead for a system that allows people to cast their municipal election ballots at any one of 12 vote centers.

At the Galleria at Sunset mall vote center early Tuesday afternoon, election team leader Betty Maynard reported a "pretty steady" stream of voters, though no one had to wait long.

Maynard said a few people were lined up outside the vote center at 7 a.m., three hours before the rest of the shopping mall opened for business. "We had some voters waiting to get in, you betcha," she said.

Tuesday's crowd seemed to be anchored by the sort of diehard voters who turn out no matter what.

Frank Faletich, 86, recently lost his wife, Gay, after 64 years of marriage, but there he was voting, just like he always does. "I haven't missed one election since I got out of the service," he said.

By service, Faletich means the Army in Europe during World War II, a combat tour that left him wounded. Gay wrote him every day he was overseas, Faletich said with tears in his eyes.

He had one word to say about the low turnout: "Stinks."

Then he added, "That's why we get the kind of elected officials we have."

Gwenell Reaze, 40, cast her ballot at the mall alongside her daughter, Shantay, 24. They said there was no particular race that drew them to the polls; they voted because they always do.

Both said it bothered them that so few people participate in municipal elections.

"This is where you live," Shantay said. "You should care what happens here."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.