Perkins preparing to exit police post

When former Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins retired from the Legislature, he left the speaker's gavel in the capable hands of Barbara Buckley. Soon the Henderson police chief plans to do the same with his current position.

Perkins said last week that his retirement from the department where he has spent his 24-year police career probably will come within the next year and confirmed he has been talking with officials at the city about the coming transition in leadership.

"My conversations with city management have been very positive. They'd like me to stick around," he said. "I've let them know I'm flattered, but I wanted to let them know I wasn't going to be here much longer so they could prepare for my replacement."

Perkins still has plenty of friends in political and business circles from his 14 years in the Legislature and has been widely expected for a while now to begin pursuing his consulting work full time.

He took some heat last year for starting the political consulting business while in the public employ, but he has said it currently is a small operation with only a few clients.

In discussing his future plans, he said last week that he hasn't decided whether to go to work for himself or for someone else. "I get private sector offers all the time and I think it's prudent to evaluate all of them," he said.

Perkins said his departure, when it comes, will "be on my time frame and not because of issues within the department." He said his decision to move on is in no way related to the controversial recent fatal shooting by one of his officers of Deshira Selimaj, an Albanian ice-cream truck driver, in front of her husband and children.

A coroner's inquest on the shooting is scheduled for April 11. Some witnesses dispute police claims that Selimaj was armed and out of control. Perkins said the inquest will "vindicate the officer and the department."

As for his successor, Perkins said the new chief probably will come from within the department, though it is up to the city who gets the post.

"I think you can see from my time in the Assembly that I surround myself with good people, and I invest in their advancement," he said.

DERBY CHANGES HORSES

Democrat Jill Derby, the anthropologist from Gardnerville who is making her second run for Congress in District 2, did not get along at all with her first campaign manager.

"It just didn't work at all. It wasn't a good fit in terms of style, competency, knowledge of the area, everything," she said of Greg Richardson, who previously had worked on the national anti-war campaign Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

Derby has replaced him with David Mason, a Massachusetts native who previously was finance director of the successful congressional campaign of Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire.

Derby must be hoping history repeats itself for Mason: Hodes defeated a Republican incumbent, Charlie Bass, on his second try for the seat.

Mason also worked on the campaign of Democrat Steve Marchand for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire until Marchand withdrew following former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen's decision to run.

Derby also has brought on board Jennifer Crowe, a former reporter and editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal, as a press spokeswoman, she said.

Derby is thought to face an uphill battle, and not only because the district has nearly 32,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats.

Unlike last time, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., now has the power of incumbency behind him, and Derby between the two races served as chairwoman of the Nevada Democratic Party, a position whose partisan nature might rub rural voters the wrong way.

Derby argued that both those factors could be advantages. Heller's incumbency, she said, makes him part of the problem for people who are sick of Congress and Washington business as usual. And her work with the party during a time it experienced huge growth has given her a statewide network of activists and volunteers, she said.

"People are frustrated with Dean Heller," she said. "They feel he hasn't been independent and doesn't really represent Nevada. There is an enormous appetite for real change, even stronger than before."

Heller spokesman Stewart Bybee said his constituents will vote to keep their congressman.

"Congressman Heller's record reflects the priorities and values of Nevada's Second District," Bybee said. "He will continue to focus on issues important to his constituents, such as border security and veterans' health, in the coming months."

SPRINGTIME FANCY

If the pollen, warm temperatures and amorous teenagers didn't tell you spring is upon us, you know what season it is when legislative candidates start declaring for office like crazy.

There will be Democratic and Republican primaries in Assembly District 21, where Bob Beers is the incumbent.

The open seat in District 2 has candidates on both sides, including two Democrats.

A Democratic primary also is shaping up in District 23. Republican candidates are mounting challenges to Peggy Pierce in District 3, Kelvin Atkinson in District 17, Mark Manendo in District 18 and Jerry Claborn in District 19.

All four of those districts are overwhelmingly Democratic and getting more so. Democrats last week touted their continuing voter registration gains statewide, noting that every legislative district in Nevada has gotten more Democratic since the 2006 election.

Asked whether the Republican candidates in those heavily Democratic districts weren't long shots, Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, said, "Most of ours are. We call them our heroes." It helps to have a sense of humor when you are a 27-15 minority.

Gansert said Republicans have 27 Assembly candidates lined up and ready to file in May and plan to have a candidate in every district. "We think it's important that voters have alternatives, have the opportunity to vote for a Republican if they want to," she said. "The numbers definitely are tough for us."

Republicans see their best chances in Sean Fellows, running against Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt in District 29, and Donna Toussaint, running for the open seat being vacated by Assemblywoman Valerie Weber. Democrats have built an edge in both districts, but Fellows and Toussaint are working hard to build bipartisan appeal.

Perhaps the most quixotic race of all is that being waged by Jim Jonas, who plans to run against Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley. Democrats have a 21-point registration advantage in the district, which re-elected Buckley in 2006 with 68 percent of the vote.

Carson City activist Chuck Muth, a nonpartisan since he quit the Republican Party, has made some noise about moving to Southern Nevada to run against Buckley. That's not Jonas' reason for running for the Las Vegas seat, he said. He just wants to serve the community.

"When I let the party know I wanted to run, they said, 'Oh, that's wonderful, we don't have anyone for that district,'" Jonas said. "I didn't know who Barbara Buckley really was. I'd heard of her, obviously, but I didn't know she was in my district. I'm just concerned that we've had the same people in there for quite a while now, and while they work hard and I respect their service, it's time for a fresh face in there."

Jonas, a distribution manager at Bloomingdale's, has lived in Las Vegas for 21 of his 31 years, but in District 8 for only about a year, he said.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.