It’s often true for voters that the further down the ballot they look, the more puzzling their decision becomes. This year, the bottom of the ballot includes five county administrative races and no less than 30 judicial seats! Those are bound to pose a challenge to the average voter.
For the judicial races, we would merely defer our readers to the endorsements made and published by the experienced attorneys at the local law firm of Mills and Mills. Those can be reviewed in this edition on page 13.
The county races, on the other hand, are a tougher nut to crack. Many voters have no idea what these administrative offices even do, much less who the best candidate is to fill the seat. So, in the hopes of making the decision easier for our readers, we interviewed as many of the candidates as we could reach last week. This column will provide a bit of information about each candidate and his/her vision for the office in the future. Finally, we have made our humble recommendations on each race.
County Assessor
County Assessor Michele Shafe (D) is seeking reelection for a second term in office. She is being challenged by Libertarian (L) candidate Tim Hagan and Independent American Party (IAP) candidate Brad Lee Barnhill.
The job of assessor is to place a value on all property subject to taxation and to collect the personal property tax on business.
Shafe served as assistant director in the assessor’s office for 13 years prior to her election in 2010. She is a state certified appraiser who grew up in Las Vegas, attended Chaparral High School and received degrees in Business Administration at UNLV. During her term, Shafe has worked to make the office more transparent to the public. She has posted three videos on the assessor’s website meant to educate the public on common issues surrounding property value assessments. She has also worked to make the office more efficient and accurate in its appraisals, improving the county website’s aerial photography segment which helps to maximize productivity in the asssessor’s office.
Tim Hagan comes from a more technical background as an electrical engineer. He holds a masters degree from Georgia Tech and has lived in Las Vegas for the past 20 years. He admits that things are generally going well in the assessor’s office but says he would make several improvements to the operation. With his technical background, he would improve data analysis programs to increase fairness of assessments. He would also work to drive more of the office’s business to the county website making it more convenient for taxpayers and enabling the consolidation of satellite services back to the County building. As an active Libertarian, Hagan says he would also fight at the legislature against any proposals to raise, or to eliminate, the existing cap on property taxes.
Ms. Shafe has done an excellent job as the assessor over the past four years and has operated the office in a fair and transparent way. The PROGRESS endorses Michele Shafe for assessor.
County Clerk
Clark County Clerk Diana Alba will not be seeking re-election this year for a second term. Democrat Lynn Goya is running against Republican William Hols for the empty seat. The Clerk maintains records for the County Commission, issues marriage licenses, swears in notary publics and other duties.
Ms. Goya has lived in Boulder City for 21 years and has run a small business of free-lance writing, grant writing and media consulting. She has had a special interest in tourism-related media which promotes the Las Vegas area. In the position of Clerk, she sees an opportunity to better promote the wedding industry in Las Vegas. She would work with the wedding industry on developing a marketing plan for the region.
Mr. Hols did not respond to calls for an interview and does not appear to be actively campaigning.
The PROGRESS endorses Lynn Goya for clerk.
County Recorder
Debbie Conway (D) has served the past eight years as Recorder and is now seeking a third term. She is being challenged by Don Hotchkiss (R), Douglas “Tractor” Johnson (Lib) and Shannon Maclean (IAP).
The Recorder’s office is the keeper of the county’s public records including property deeds, ownership transfers, mining claims and more. The office processes more than 1 million documents per year.
Over the past eight years, Conway has led the modernization of the Recorder’s office. She said that when she took office, there was a nine month backlog on recording documents. Since then, she has implemented technology enhancements that have, for most documents, brought about same-day service. These have included the ability to scan e-documents making them easily searchable, developing a cell phone app which allows customers to search and pull up documents on their phones and the installation of kiosks in the county building that speeds up the recording process. For the future, Conway plans to provide recording kiosks in outlying areas like Mesquite, Henderson, Searchlight and Laughlin; and also enter agreements that allow kiosks to be placed in public libraries, title companies and real estate association offices.
Mr. Hotchkiss has a civil engineering background having 35 years in the military and is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers veteran. He is a former deputy manager of the State Public Works Board where he reviewed construction projects throughout the state. As a conservative candidate, he said that he objected to the recent action in the recorder’s office of processing same sex marriages “before it was entirely legal to do so.” He said that, in office, he would “strictly follow the law and not try to break new ground.”
Hotchkiss said that he would institute a fraud identification program in the recorder’s office which would notify property owners immediately if a lien has been placed on their property.
Mr. Hotchkiss would, no doubt, be an able leader as recorder. But we don’t see anything broken in the current office.
The PROGRESS endorses Debbie Conway for recorder.
County Treasurer
Laura Fitzpatrick (D) has held office of treasurer since 1998 and is being challenged by Mike Javornicky (R).
The office of treasurer collects the taxes and holds them in trust for the county. As such, the treasurer is responsible for billions of tax dollars.
Ms. Fitzpatrick is a certified public accountant with more than 20 years of experience in both public and private sector finance. She says that her focus has been on applying private sector principles, and her extensive financial background, to the treasurer’s office. She said that her habit has been to always ask why the office is doing things in a particular way; and to not accept ‘that is the way it has always been done’ as the final answer. She has worked to modernize the operation making it more productive and simplifying the process of people paying tax bills.
Mr. Javornicky did not respond to calls for an interview. Even so, things are running well at the treasurer’s office and we see no need for a change.
The PROGRESS endorses Laura Fitzpatrick for treasurer.
Public Administrator
This is an office that most people know very little about. It recovers and secures assets of people who have died without a will. Then the Public Administrator distributes those assets to the next of kin if the heirs can be located; and safeguards the property when no heir can be found.
John J. Cahill (D) has served in the position since 2007. This year he is challenged by Ed Klapproth (R).
Mr. Cahill spent 30 years as a juvenile probation officer. After his retirement, he worked part-time as an investigator for the Public Administrator before being elected to the office.
Cahill says that compassion is the hallmark of his administration. He has worked to get several laws passed or changed that prevent the exploitation of the elderly, children and other heirs. He has also increased the productivity of the office, even through difficult economic times when county staff was being downsized.
Klapproth is a professor at College of Southern Nevada who has also spent time in law enforcement and in the antique business. If he wins office, he would make efforts to better educate the public on the importance of creating wills and having estates in order. He would also institute changes to make things easier for decedents.
In our view, Mr. Cahill is already running a tight ship. There’s no need to rock the boat.
The PROGRESS endorses John Cahill for public administrator.
OPD Board District 7 At-Large
On another note, we will hazard a final endorsement on the race for the Overton Power District Trustee at-large seat which will appear at the bottom of the ballot for residents throughout the OPD service territory.
In this race, the district is fortunate to have a field of good candidates. The at-large seat is charged with representing the interests of all OPD ratepayers from Warm Springs to Echo Bay, and both sides of the river in Virgin Valley.
Mesquite has produced two candidates in the race: Shawn Hughes and Bill Hurd.
Mr. Hughes brings the perspective of a native-born Mesquite pioneer family. He also brings a rich management experience to the table.
Mr. Hurd has an impressive engineering background with a distinguished career at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This technical experience could be a benefit on the board as well.
But both Mesquite candidates have expressed concern about the city being under-represented on the OPD board, and have admitted an openness to discussing another re-alignment of the board to allow Mesquite more representatives. While that might be good for some voters in the city of
Mesquite, it would be bad for residents of the smaller communities who have unique needs and have a bulk of transmission infrastructure running through their areas. This factor ought to be a consideration in the decision for residents of Bunkerville, Moapa, Logandale and Overton.
That problem does not arise with the incumbent, Steven Miller, who resides in Bunkerville. Mr. Miller has served well over the past two years in his appointed position. But he is not well-known to the voting public and has been a quiet presence on the board. He is, however, approachable enough, has already gone through the learning curve of serving on the OPD board and, as a long-time employee of NV Energy, is quite knowledgeable about the field of power.
Overton resident Judy Metz is well known to voters on both sides of the mesa. She has long demonstrated abilities as a coalition builder in the communities. She has served on more civic leadership positions than we have space to mention; both in Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley. And she has an extensive record of accomplishments in those positions.
The OPD Board already has members with technical know-how. And where that runs thin, the capable OPD management team has been hired to do the engineering and to educate the board on the details. Strong technical knowledge and engineering skill is not a must for a good OPD trustee. What is always needed, though, is someone who can bring various parties together to reach a consensus. That is especially true when the two parties involve such unique and differing communities as are included in the OPD territory. Ms. Metz has proven that she can bring various interests and communities together to accomplish civic goals.
The PROGRESS endorses Judy Metz for Overton Power District At-Large seat.
