Las Vegas mayoral candidates, others hit home stretch

There are two days left before Las Vegans pick their first new mayor in a dozen years, capping a campaign that could break records for both spending and voter participation.

Candidates Carolyn Goodman and Chris Giunchigliani presented calm, optimistic demeanors as they went about their campaign routines Saturday, both looking forward to victory even though most polls show Goodman as the likely victor.

This is the final weekend for campaigning in municipal races before voters in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City head to the polls on Tuesday.

Goodman and her husband, current Mayor Oscar Goodman, fired up about 40 volunteers (and two dogs) who were about to leave campaign headquarters to find supporters who hadn't yet voted.

"It's your city and your government," Goodman said. "If I'm elected, and when I'm elected, I promise you my door is open to all of you.

"We will make sure that this city continues to grow in the direction it has been moving for the last 12 years."

Afterward, Goodman said she wasn't jittery heading into the campaign's final days.

"After four children, six grandchildren and the life I've led, nothing moves me at all to get nervous," she said.

Giunchigliani planned to spend most of Saturday the way she has spent most of the campaign: walking neighborhoods and knocking on doors. But she took time out for community events, including a meeting of the Ministerial Alliance at the Tonopah Community Garden in Ward 5, an area that's reaped some of the downtown re­development benefits but is still struggling.

"I do believe in a strong downtown core," Giunchigliani told the small group of ministers and community activists. "Any good city has a strong downtown core. But we have to revitalize the neighborhoods around it, or that core will not succeed."

It was no accident that she spent part of the final weekend in that part of the city. She said her campaign is trying to turn out voters in Wards 1, 3 and 5, which are the older neighborhoods with more low-income and minority residents.

"We're turning out people who normally don't vote," she said. "We've targeted broadly -- people who are not inveterate voters."

She also said she's not tense going into the final turn: "It's still about finding every single voter who hasn't turned out. We don't stop until 7:05 p.m. on Tuesday."

LARGE TURNOUT EXPECTED

By then, the number of voters in the race will probably have crossed the 50,000 threshold, with a chance of hitting 60,000 voters.

During early voting, which ended Friday, 24,662 people cast ballots, a 25 percent increase over the 19,697 who did so in the primary. A 25 percent increase overall would bring general election voting to more than 60,000, or about 27 percent of Las Vegas' 222,185 registered voters.

More likely, according to the campaigns, is a number in the low 50,000s, which would put turnout in the 23 percent to 24 percent range. In 1999, Oscar Goodman's first race and the last time the mayor's seat was open, turnout was 26 percent.

Both campaigns said the higher turnout would help them.

Although Goodman and Giunchigliani have tried to distinguish themselves from each other , their positions often have some overlap. Both are for continued downtown re­development, business recruitment, pursuing a Las Vegas branch of the film and television industry and further study of government consolidation and service sharing.

Both candidates are well-known. Goodman founded the Meadows School and presided over it for nearly three decades in addition to her public role as the mayor's wife. Giunchigliani has a long record of public service as a state legislator and, currently, as a Clark County commissioner.

They've both worked on issues outside of jurisdictional boundaries, such as prodding banks to keep up foreclosed properties or working with upside-down homeowners. Both have education backgrounds -- Giunchigliani was a special education teacher -- and have talked about the importance of good schools as both community needs and business development must-haves.

They've also spent a lot of money.

Since Jan. 1, Goodman spent more than $1.2 million on the campaign, with Giunchigliani close behind at nearly $1.1 million.

Factor in the other main candidates from the primary -- Larry Brown ($548,977), Steve Ross ($268,198), Victor Chaltiel ($1.7 million) and George Harris ($44,795) -- and more than $4.8 million has been spent chasing a job that pays $130,000 in each year of the four-year term.

Because of Chaltiel's spending, that figure outpaces what was spent by the leading candidates in 1999. Oscar Goodman, Arnie Adamsen and Mark Fine spent $2,699,593 that year, which in 2011 dollars equals $3.6 million.

OTHER RACES IN LAS VEGAS

There are three other races on the Las Vegas ballot: City Council Ward 3 and Municipal Judge Departments 2 and 3.

The council race has been full of mudslinging. Adriana Martinez has criticized Bob Coffin's record as a former state legislator so aggressively that he's threatened legal action. Coffin, meanwhile, has continued to press a claim that Martinez wasn't a legal resident of the ward when she filed for office, making her ineligible to run. City council members serve four-year terms and the current salary is $72,000.

In the Department 3 judicial race, incumbent George Assad was considered vulnerable and drew five challengers. He beat all of them by about 4,000 votes. His remaining challenger, Heidi Almase, doesn't have a record to run on so she did the next best thing: she ran on Assad's record.

But Assad, despite receiving the lowest marks of any judge in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's biennial Judging the Judges survey, has plenty of supporters. In fact, the father of Anthony Carleo -- who is accused of being the Bellagio Bandit -- has been endorsed by every law enforcement agency in the city.

Almase, a Boyd School of Law graduate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, promises to treat people in her courtroom with respect, one of the areas in which Assad received poor marks in the survey.

In the Department 2 contest the surnames of both candidates -- Roger and Bonaventure -- are familiar ones to voters.

Susan Roger is currently a chief deputy district attorney and the wife of Clark County District Attorney David Roger. Sonny Bonaventure is the son and brother of a District Court and Justice Court judge, respectively. He currently works as a deputy public defender.

Roger is the more conservative of the two, but Bonaventure has promised to take a hard stand against repeat offenders.

Municipal Court handles misdemeanors ranging from traffic violations to the more serious drunken driving and domestic violence cases.

ONE RACE IN HENDERSON

Henderson voters have one race to decide: a sometimes-nasty City Council campaign in Ward 4 between Planning Commissioner Sam Bateman and former Police Chief Mike Mayberry.

The two men are battling for the right to replace three-term incumbent City Councilman Steve Kirk, who could not run again because of term limits.

Bateman, who works as a deputy prosecutor for the Clark County district attorney's office, has raised about $164,000 and spent about $154,000 since Jan. 1, roughly $50,000 more on both counts than Mayberry, according to the latest round of campaign reports.

Three races in NORTH LAS VEGAS

In North Las Vegas, two City Council seats and a Municipal Court judgeship are up for grabs.

The most heated race is in Ward 4, where incumbent Councilman Richard Cherchio is campaigning to keep his seat against dentist Wade Wagner. The city's public safety unions have actively campaigned against Cherchio because he voted in favor of cuts to public safety in the cash-strapped city. They also have donated heavily to Wagner's campaign.

In Ward 2, assistant principal Pamela Goynes-Brown faces property manager Linda Meisenheimer for term-limited Councilman William Robinson's seat. Goynes-Brown is the daughter of Theron Goynes, who served on the council for 20 years. Meisenheimer tied for second place in the primary, then won a card draw to advance to the general election to face Goynes-Brown.

North Las Vegas City Council members serve four-year terms and earn $41,827 a year.

Whichever candidate wins the Department 1 seat will become the city's first female Municipal Court judge.

Marsha Kimble-Simms, an attorney with her own law firm, faces Catherine Ramsey, a North Las Vegas deputy city attorney in the criminal division, in the race to replace Judge Warren VanLandschoot, who is retiring.

Municipal judges in the city serve six-year terms and earn $148,438 a year.

SIX MEASURES IN BOULDER CITY

The ballot in Boulder City will feature six ballot measures but no candidates.

The questions concern a range of subjects from buying police cars and ambulances to making the job of city attorney an elected post.

Boulder City saw races for mayor and two city council seats this year, but all three were decided outright during the primary.

Henry Brean, Lynnette Curtis and Doug McMurdo contributed to this report. Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate @reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.