NORTH LAS VEGAS: 26 vie for empty Ward 4 seat - News

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Jul. 14, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NORTH LAS VEGAS: 26 vie for empty Ward 4 seat

Council members form interviewing teams

By LYNNETTE CURTIS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Elections - Municipal

LONG LIST
Applicants for the vacant Ward 4 City Council seat in North Las Vegas:

• Nicholas H. Anderson
• Celeste Vaughn Brown
• Barbara Jean Buttell
• P. Jo Cato
• Richard Cherchio
• Danielle N. Custodio
• Dean P. Dennis
• Jacqueline Edwards
• Willard N. Ewing
• Nick Franco
• Joy Grimmer
• Sarah Humphreys
• Ruth L. Johnson
• Delbert E. Leavitt
• L. Dean Leavitt
• Phyllis Levy
• William R. O’Melia
• Mark D. Pallans
• Laura E. Perkins
• Richard Sadler
• Suhair Susan Sayegh
• Rodney Smalls
• Clarence Smith
• Thomas A. Stocks
• Jason E. Torres
• Wade Wagner

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Maybe they should just draw a name out of a hat.

A whopping 26 people applied for a vacant North Las Vegas City Council seat, leaving the four sitting City Council members with an awful lot of sifting to do.

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The applicants range in age, education and experience.

Among them is a dentist, an attorney, an interior designer, a homemaker, a construction superintendent and a retired letter carrier. They list a dizzying array of hobbies and interests on their applications, from "cross-stitch" and "environmentally friendly landscaping" to "brown belt in Bushido Karate" and "donate blood every 8 weeks."

So how will the City Council whittle down the diverse field of applicants to fill the Ward 4 seat?

"It's a lot of work, there's no doubt about it," Councilwoman Anita Wood said.

The four Council members hope to have interviewed each of the 26 candidates before Wednesday, when they are supposed to appoint one of them to fill the seat vacated mid-term by Shari Buck. Buck was elected the city's new mayor last month.

Speaking to so many candidates individually is a time consuming process, particularly because the four council members can't all be present at each interview without violating the open meeting law.

So they split into interviewing teams: Wood and Buck on one, Councilmen William Robinson and Robert Eliason on the other.

"It's going to be a long journey," seven-term Councilman Robinson said. "But if they were interested, they are owed the opportunity to be interviewed."

Council members said they are looking for someone who has a solid background on city issues, a clear vision for the city's future, and a strong backbone.

"I'd like somebody who can be their own person," Buck said. "Somebody who can stand up to special interest groups and lobbyists."

Whomever they choose will earn an annual salary of $41,827 until the term is up in 2011. The appointee also will have a leg up if he or she decides to run for the seat at that time.

"You can claim some experience, and, obviously, you'll have the name recognition," said University of Nevada, Reno political science professor Eric Herzik.

Mid-term appointments are the perfect opportunity to get your foot in the political door, he said.

"You avoid the expense and all the fighting of an election."

To qualify for the position, applicants had to be eligible to register to vote, be a U.S. citizen at least 18 years of age, and have no felony convictions. They also must have been residents of Ward 4 for at least 30 days before June 30, which was the last day applications were accepted.

Council members said they won't make up their minds until the interviews are complete and they've each shared their top picks at Wednesday's council meeting.

But others have said Richard Cherchio, a 62-year-old retired letter carrier originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., may be the frontrunner.

Cherchio, who serves as president of a local alliance of homeowners associations and has been active in the city for years, ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2007.

He said he hasn't lobbied council members for the seat, but has "demonstrated a true desire to be of service."

Several of his supporters also have sent letters recommending him to the council.

An appointment would be "an ideal opportunity to have a two-year probationary period," Cherchio said. He added that he plans to run again for the seat in 2011, regardless of whether he's appointed.

Buck said she has "probably 10 people" at the top of her list of candidates. She declined to say who they were.

"The hard part is there are so many good applicants to choose from," she said.

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. NLV teacher wrote on July 14, 2009 08:30 PM: Lord save us from Ruth Leola is it? (former school trustee Johnson) it is. The school district will never recover from her years on the school board. She was always mean spirited and anti-student (unless the student belonged to her church)she teamed up with her two clones (Scow and Moulton) to bring us Carlos (n-------s come in all colors) Garcia and if that wasn't bad enough she stuck us with Walter(10%)Ruffels. Thanks to term-limits she was kicked off the board. Now she wants on the city council. These people just can't leave the public alone. They insist we do with their services. Haven't you done enough damage Ruth Leola? Virgil Sestini wrote on July 14, 2009 06:36 PM: Ruth Johnson wants on the No Las Vegas City Commission: Lock the vaults with the money at city hall! Ruth Johnson, former CCSD Trustee, did not get enough money out of the county so she now wants to drain NLV...Watch out folks...you have something to worry about here. She did nothing to improve education in the CCSD, but she did help spend a lot of money hiring supervisors, mentors, specialists, counselors and good ole boy retired administrators back on the payroll of the CCSD. When it came to naming a single school Veterans Memorial High School she could not help them...she did everything to side track the 20+ year request by veterans, parents, relatives and interested friends. She was a very large factor in Veterans Memorial High School not being named. She helped to change the rules on this, but also implmented policy whereby a future school could be named for herself and other fellow board members and administrators after they retired or died. Now that is a real accomplishment. She knew nothing about education and did nothing to improve achievement scores, state test results, attendance, graduation rates or reduce drop out rates. Look out she knows nothing about city government but wants the salary, perks, benefits and recognition for a still bigger political job in the future....perhaps state senator or assemblywoman, or maybe even governor. Now is the time to stop her dead in her tracks. She has connections with her church and may very well use that as a power wedge to win this job she desperately wants. school parent wrote on July 14, 2009 01:13 PM: I could not beleive my eyes - Ruth Leola Johnson wants to be a city councilwoman. Poor North Las Vegas - she'll do to the city what she did for education. She thinks its the same as being on the school board. She can cry when things don't go well and there is an African-American on the board she can start fights with like she did on the school board. But, don't count her out, she is friends with the new mayor and they go to the same church. What a shame. Joe Bama wrote on July 14, 2009 10:51 AM: So there are 26 volunteers to be "public servants" wow! The best way to pick one would be a cage match,last ---hole standing wins it all. Jon Rose wrote on July 14, 2009 08:34 AM: I hope this is not the Ruth Johnson , former school board member. She was noted for her hot temper and failure to listen to the citizens. On one occasion the board ordered a lady taken out of the CCSD meeting by the school district police. The woman suffured a hear attack. She also failed to have a school named Veterans Memorial High School... She wasn't going to be " bullied" by the Vets."I ferl this is a very poor chose. Not the former school board member wrote on July 14, 2009 05:15 AM: Hopefully, this is not the same Ruth Johnson that recently - none too soon - departed the Clark County School District board. Her track record of accomplishments is nil over the past 12 years. Unless of course, one believes the constant double-speak of the school district and how they so often manipulate the verbage to the public. Or how they cite achievement - after they've lessened the standards, or critize the evaluation too altogether. Or simply look at the last two superintendents, or even how they wasted millions with people hired to watch for fires who did nothing all day, and then there's the building they bought for themselves on Sahara, massive waste in the system, failure to stand with the teachers, and so much more ... There are 25 other candidates, hopefully they are as well-connected politically as Ruth Johnson and can defeat her attempt to slip back into politics. 'Clear vision' and 'backbone' - not even close.