By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
As the final weeks counted down before the June 12 primary election, Moapa Valley Justice of the Peace candidate Kyle Waite held one more Meet and Greet event on Tuesday, June 22. The event filled the great hall of the Old Logandale School building with supporters, friends and even some community members who were yet undecided.
Waite is running for the seat being vacated by his father Lanny Waite who is retiring at the end of this year. He is up against local attorney Gregor Mills in the election.
The event was hosted by Logandale residents Scott and Linda Carson. Provided to nearly 200 attendees was a barbecue meal of hamburgers and hotdogs, grilled up on an outside grill by the honorable Judge Lanny Waite himself. It also included Hawaiian Shave Ice treats served up by the Carsons.
There were games, going on outside in the school yard, for the youngsters; led by teen members of the extended Waite family.
Meanwhile, inside the hall Waite circulated around the room greeting attendees, meeting people and answering their questions.
In a brief address to the crowd, Waite reviewed some of the major issues of the campaign.
He talked on the subject of experience which has come up often in the race. Waite reiterated the fact that he has served for the past year as a Judge Pro Tem, a kind of substitute for other outlying Justices of the Peace.
“My opponent does have a lot of courtroom experience and that is great, I’m not knocking his experience at all,” Waite said. “But this isn’t a run for a position as a defense attorney. It is for a judgeship. And I am the only candidate with real judicial experience.”
Waite also touched on the ongoing debate about the future of the local Juvenile Court.
“My opponent and I obviously have a difference of ideas on this issue,” Waite said.
Waite has maintained that Mills would not be able to continue his private practice of family law while serving as a juvenile master in Moapa Valley. This is because the juvenile court falls under the Family Court system, he claims.
“That is my assertion,” Waite said. “I’m not being negative or nasty about it. I have done the research and asked about these things and that is what I have found.”
For his part, Mills has insisted that there is no conflict in acting as a juvenile master in Moapa Valley while continuing to argue in divorce proceedings and other family matters under the family courts in Las Vegas. He has been so confident of this that Mills has made a pledge to voluntarily give up the family law portion of his private practice if it ever became an issue.
After Waite finished his remarks, a couple of audience members stepped forward to voice support for the candidate.
Moapa Valley resident Bret Empey, who works as Sergeant of the Overton Resident Section on Metro Police was first to stand. Empey made it clear that he was giving his own views and not speaking in an official capacity.
He hailed Waite’s support for the Fresh Start program, a program adopted and employed by Judge Lanny Waite. In it, repeat offenders are given the option of either serving six months in jail or leaving the jurisdiction for a period of three years.
“There are only so many options available to us in law enforcement in dealing with a repeat offender,” Empey said. “It can be very frustrating. This program gives an opportunity for them (the offender) to either serve six months in jail, or maybe get a fresh start somewhere else where they can rebuild their lives.”
Empey said that, from his standpoint as a taxpayer, the program makes a lot of sense. “That way I, the taxpayer, am not paying to have someone sit there in jail for six months,” he said. “I’m not being burdened with that bill.”
Local Metro officer Cory Estes stood next to represent the Las Vegas Police Protective Association (LVPPA), the union which represents all law enforcement officers in the state of Nevada. He emphasized that Waite had been endorsed by that organization.
Estes said that LVPPA officials can’t possibly know all of the subtle differences in communities and in the various races for judgeships when they make the endorsements. Therefore they rely on feedback from the officers that serve in those communities, Estes said.
“Pretty much all of the local officers support Kyle (Waite),” Estes said. “So he got (the LVPPA) endorsement.”
