2012 Voter Guide: Nevada Assembly District 16

Assembly District 16 will gain a new voice with either a former UNLV professor seeking a different way to support education or a taxi driver hoping to open the state to more mining.

The winner will fill the seat held since 2000 by John Oceguera who is running for Congress.

Heidi Swank taught in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas anthropology department until budget cuts helped lead to her recent resignation. Rather than leave town for another university job, Swank, a teacher for the past two decades, chose to stay and fight for education.

Given the state of the economy, "we're going to have to really take an innovative approach and look at as many things as we can to try to find ways to get more money into our schools," said Swank, a native of Prescott, Wis.

She has held multiple positions in the Beverly Green Neighborhood Association, which she currently serves as president, during her seven years in the district. As a result, she has been able to work with the Las Vegas City Council and the Planning Commission on neighborhood issues.

Much of District 16 consists of historic neighborhoods. One of Swank's top priorities, if elected, would be helping to make those homes more energy-efficient.

"A lot of people who live downtown love these older houses," she said. "They want to keep them looking like older houses, but they'd also like to save something on their electrical bills."

Eventually, she would like to turn her focus to renewable energy. "Hopefully, that will bring jobs to Nevada, too, which is something that we really need."

But education, and ways to pay for it, remain her top priority.

"We want to make sure that everyone is contributing fairly," she said. "It's for the best of all of us if we can better fund education."

Ben Boarman knows he faces an uphill battle, given the political leanings of District 16, which, in addition to parts of downtown, includes the Strip and UNLV.

"I know I live in a more liberal district. I'm aware of that," he said, admitting that's probably why he ran unopposed in the primary. "But that doesn't mean the Republican can't win."

Since moving to Las Vegas four years ago, Boarman has one race under his belt. He sought Chris Giunchigliani's Clark County Commission seat in 2010, receiving 31 percent of the vote. He also served on the Sonoma County Republican Central Committee in his native Santa Rosa, Calif., before joining the Navy.

If elected, Boarman's first priority would be increased mining and shortening the process between a company's application and the start of drilling.

"There's so much you can do with central Nevada," he said. "There's resources. There's gold, silver, magnesium, gypsum. You name it, we have it."

As part of that process, he said, "ideally, I would like to get the (Bureau of Land Management) out of the state and basically return approximately 84 percent of our land to the state."

On other issues, Boarman said he's a "big proponent of gun rights," is "100 percent pro-life" and instead of welfare, he would like to see short-term, interest-free loans, with a five-year cap on aid.

"I'm a hard-working individual," Boarman said of the one thing he would like voters to know about him, "and I believe that everyone should have the merits of their own work bestowed upon them, without the government taking it away through excessive taxation."

Contact reporter Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.