By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
The Moapa Valley Rotary Club hosted a Meet and Greet event which featured more than a dozen candidates to the community on Thursday evening, Oct 13 at the Logandale Fire Station #73.
The informal gathering brought candidates from federal, state and local political races in contact with local voters in an informal setting. About 40 people attended the two-hour event.
Sam Peters, a Republican running for U.S. Congressional District 4 against incumbent Steven Horsford, was in attendance shaking hands and greeting local residents throughout the evening.
Peters introduced himself to attendees as a pro-life, fiscal conservative who believes staunchly in preserving the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He told those in attendance that he would push for a plan to end illegal immigration at the southern borders.
Peters said that, a little more than 3 weeks before the election, the race for District 4 was razor close.
“The most recent poll had me up by 3 percentage points,” Peters said. “So it is a toss up. It has never been so important that everyone get out and vote by November 8.”
More information about peters is available at www.sampeters4congress.com.
In the race for Nevada Governor, the Joe Lombardo campaign sent Regional Field Director Chase McNamara to represent the Republican candidate. McNamara was mingling with voters at the event and answering questions about Lombardo’s positions on the issues.
The only other gubernatorial candidate in attendance was the Independent American Party candidate Ed Bridges. In his 90s, Bridges had come to Moapa Valley from his home in Henderson to attend the event.
Bridges said that he bases his candidacy on two essential documents: the Holy Bible and the U.S. Constitution. He said that, as Governor, he would institute a comprehensive curriculum about the U.S. Constitution in public schools. In addition, he would enact a mandate to post the Ten Commandments in all of the courtrooms of the state.
Bridges said that he would return to strict principles of fiscal conservatism.
“No government, state or federal, can give the people anything that it doesn’t first take away from them to begin with,” Bridges said.
For more information about Bridges visit edbridgesforgovernor@gmail.com.
Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate Stavros Anthony made a brief appearance at the beginning of the event.
“It is great to get out into these smaller towns and meet the people out here,” Anthony said. “I enjoy being here.”
For more information about Stavros Anthony visit StavrosForNevada.com.
Also running for Lieutenant Governor was Trey Delap who was in attendance at the Rotary event. Delap is running as a nonpartisan candidate in the election, with no party affiliation.
Delap disputed the perception that a vote for a non-partisan is a wasted vote. He pointed out that 38 percent of Nevada voters are not registered as affiliated with a political party. Meanwhile 33 percent are registered Democrat and 28 percent are registered Republican. In addition, a healthy percentage of each party have expressed that they would vote for a nonpartisan candidate if one should appear on the ballot.
“So if all of those voters would just vote nonpartisan, we would have a solid chance,” Delap said.
For more information on Trey Delap visit delap4nevada.com.
In the race for Attorney General, Sigal Chattah’s campaign sent campaign manager Jon Shiner to the local event. Shiner said that Chattah has been campaigning hard all over the state.
“She couldn’t make it tonight because she has been on a ten day, 17 county tour all around the state,” Shiner said.
He pointed out that Chattah gained notoriety during the pandemic by bringing a lawsuit against Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak on behalf of Calvary Chapel in Lone Mountain. This was because Sisolak had applied “unjust and unscientific restrictions” on churches throughout the state during the pandemic, he said. Chattah ended up prevailing in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals forcing the Governor to allow places of worship to be treated the same as other businesses.
Six of the seven Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board candidates were in attendance last week. These included Brian Burris, Lois Hall, Lori Houston, Megan Porter, Janice Ridondo and Jill Williams. The candidates were visiting amicably with one another and with the attendees.
Overton Power District board member Richard Jones who is running for reelection to the board was also in attendance. He talked briefly about the accomplishments which had taken place since he has served on the board.
“We are doing amazing things for the reliability of our system,” Jones said. “By September of next year we are expecting to have a second transmission line feeding into our system from the grid. At that point, the 11-hour outages that we have seen in the past will not be happening again.”
Rotarian Judy Metz who helped plan the candidates night said that she was generally pleased with it, though she would have liked to see more local residents in attendance. She talked about how important it was that Moapa Valley residents educate themselves about the candidates and the issues, and then go out and vote.
“In our country and our community, we hear a lot of complaining nowadays that things are not what they ought to be,” Metz said. “But it really is up to us. If we want to see a change, we need to get up, get involved and make a change. This kind of event is where that starts.”
MV Rotary Club President Suzy Bennett expressed appreciation for the work that Metz had done to organize the event.
“You can learn more about a candidate in two minutes of talking to them face to face than you can in watching commercials on TV or reading about them on the internet,” Bennett said. “That is the power of this type of event. We were a little disappointed that more people didn’t take advantage of that. But the important thing is that folks get out and vote by election day!”
