When North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck's dentist, Wade Wagner, won the Ward 4 City Council race by one vote over the Democrat incumbent, Richard Cherchio, North Las Vegas prepared itself for a recount.
During the Clark County election department's audit, it was discovered that someone voted in the wrong ward. The election might be invalid. Shit got real.
A city council meeting was called. The decision was made by the council to re-do the election in the precinct where the "mis-vote" was cast. Mayor Buck abstained from voting because not only is Wagner her dentist, her husband worked for his campaign. Cherchio also abstained from voting.
As expected, the Wagner campaign is suing over the decision. And for some reason, former North Las Vegas mayor (and failed gubernatorial candidate) Mike Montandan filed a restraining order. But to be quite honest, as a resident of unincorporated Clark County, I didn't care. I don't live in North Las Vegas and I never plan to.
I have nothing against Wagner because I have no idea who he is except that he's a republican. I had no opinion of Cherchio except he had a strike against him for hiring Bradley Mayer, a campaign manager to conservative candidates, including Carolyn Goodman. Mayer was running Carolyn's campaign for mayor of Las Vegas, and I knew not much attention would be given to Cherchio. Cherchio knew from the beginning his reelection was not going to be easy. He was going against the current mayor's personal friend and Cherchio needed a campaign manager who woke up in the morning and went to bed at night thinking about him.
After a conversation with a friend in North Las Vegas who is emotionally invested in this election and is "in the know" when it comes to North Las Vegas politics (disclaimer: said friend works for neither campaign or any political campaign or consulting firm), I suddenly became very interested.
You think the city of Las Vegas has problems? Let me tell you about what's going on in North Las Vegas:
Wade Wagner is Shari Buck's Dentist, and hand-picked candidate for her former City Council seat
The two PACs that sent direct mail pieces attacking Cherchio have never filed Campaign and Expense reports. They have been fined by the Secretary of State and the matter has now been referred to the Attorney General's office. [Delen Goldberg of the Las Vegas Sun with details LINK]
The Precinct with the illegal ballot happens to be that of both Mayor Buck's parents and former NLV Mayor Mike Montandon
An ethics complaint was filed against Cherchio in December by a Jay L. King. King lives on the same street as Mayor Buck, and shortly thereafter was appointed to two City Advisory Boards – the Citizens Advisory Board and the Utility Advisory Board.
On June 15th, when the City Council was slated to canvass the vote, the Mayor chose to abstain from the vote because she donated to the Wagner campaign and her husband worked on the campaign "and was paid". On both of Wagner's C&E reports, Keith Buck, the Mayor's husband, is not listed as a Campaign Expense.
On June 23rd, former Mayor Montandon and Jay King waited until after the filing deadline for Temporary Restraining Orders. As mentioned, Montandon lives in the contested precinct. Initially, Montandon was claiming that he would have been "disenfranchised" by the new election but in fact, he would be super-enfranchised.
Wade Wagner has 9 registered voters in his residence. Six are clearly family, but three have different last names. Does the El Dorado HOA allow that? Might be a zoning violation.
It should be no surprise to anyone that there is now talks of recalling Mayor Buck. How realistic are those threats? We'll see.
--
Laura
