Ward War II: The neighborhood brawl

By Mike Zigler

Like any hyped bout, the June 3 general election for Las Vegas City Council Ward 1 is trimmed with a sexy story line. In the two-term defending champ's corner sits a shaken councilman -- born and raised on the turf he's defending; burned and branded by suspected political favors. Sweating from the challenger's unexpected showing, his manager has been shouting ringside, attempting to soften the opponent -- a woman who's not only a nobody, but a new kid in the neighborhood. There's conspiracy. There's shit-talking. And there's one round left to settle the dispute. The prize: a four-year seat on the City Council.

On separate meetings, CityLife sat down with eight-year incumbent Michael McDonald and political neophyte Janet Moncrief at the Saloon in Neonopolis. We sought responses to accusations, plans for the city and the answer to one complicated question: Who the hell is Janet Moncrief?

McDonald's camp certainly wants to know. It's asking the secretary of state in a formal complaint, accusing her and a few others of conspiring to oust McDonald via under-reporting campaign expenditures, illegal mailings and "other unlawful acts." Moncrief denies the accusations.

So how did an unknown registered nurse who has zero political history, including voting, get swept up in a series of accusations? Well, Moncrief believes McDonald is doing it to balance the playing field. He's untrustworthy, she says -- so to the voters, she's gotta be as well.

Says Moncrief: "What he is trying to do is say I have ethics problems -- 'Look at her, she's got problems too.' ... Every time he hits me I go up in the polls."

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For Moncrief, everything began around Thanksgiving when visiting her parents in Illinois.

Two doctors she works with at University Medical Center had convinced her she'd be a fine councilwoman. They complained that the current Ward 1 councilman wasn't visible in the area and owed more favors to friends than to the community.

"I remember telling my dad I was considering running for City Council," Moncrief said. "My dad was so cute. He goes, 'Why would anybody vote for you? Nobody knows you out there.' I said, 'Dad, well they might get to know me.'"

They certainly would. In December, Moncrief moved into Ward 1 specifically to run for City Council. But she was still hesitant.

"I debated back and forth and my thoughts were: 'Nobody knows me; I don't have chance,'" she said. "So I just kept waiting and waiting, and the most bizarre thing [was] that morning I could not stay in bed. I kept pacing around the house, saying I had to do it."

So mid-day on Feb. 7 -- the deadline date to file for a municipal race -- the single mother added her unthreatening name to two others challenging McDonald. It was her first attempt for any public office. She also achieved another first that day: She registered to vote for the first time in her 13 years as a Las Vegas resident.

"What shocks me to death is she is 43 years old and has never voted; she has never participated in the system," said Rick Henry, McDonald's senior liaison. "Now she is expecting people to vote for her when she has never voted for anything else?"

Her first time voting, April 8, included a vote for herself.

"Sounds a little selfish to me," McDonald added.

McDonald's camp immediately accused her of being a stalking-horse for gambling figure Bob Stupak, former owner of the Stratosphere. McDonald had refused to support Stupak's son, Nevada, against Ward 3 incumbent Gary Reese in 1999.

But Moncrief argues that Stupak, a friend, discouraged her from running.

"I actually called him when I decided to run, and you know what he told me? 'Don't do it; you don't have a chance,'" Moncrief recalled.

At the time, McDonald appeared to have emerged from an unethical shadow. Pundits predicted a dominant victory for Mayor Oscar Goodman, and similar results for councilmen Lawrence Weekly, Gary Reese and McDonald.

After all, McDonald is considered a "ward healer." He rebuilt a community that he said was crumbling when he took office in 1995. He redeveloped Westland Fair Shopping Center, created jobs, revitalized old parks, built new ones, reduced cut-through traffic, planned openings for senior and community centers, and formed community groups like the Department of Neighborhood Services. He installed an infrastructure of business with Wal-Mart and Lowe's. He set up Citizen Action Request System so his constituents could get results for their requests and answers to their concerns.

Ward 1 is McDonald's neighborhood. And he clearly takes pride in it. He attended elementary school in the area, Western High and worked at the Meadows Mall. He went to UNLV and served with the Metropolitan Police Department for 10 years. The people who once yelled at him as a kid to get out of the street are the same ones who put him in office. He's the hometown kid and doesn't take lightly to some outsider trying to run him out of the neighborhood.

"She never lived in the ward, then she comes and tells the residents of Ward 1 what's wrong with our area," McDonald says, incredulously.

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McDonald's success list is extensive, but he had a particularly bad beginning to his second term. The Nevada Ethics Commission tossed out a complaint in November 1999 that accused McDonald of not disclosing his friendship with executives of Silver State Disposal Service Inc. before a vote. The council voted to extend a contract between the city and the company, which donated $36,800 to McDonald's 1999 campaign. The complaint was filed by Steve Miller, who McDonald defeated in the 1995 and 1999 elections.

McDonald was later found to have broken state and city ethics laws by trying to block a topless bar from opening on behalf of a rival club's owner, and attempts to help his employer -- Larry Scheffler, president of Las Vegas Color Graphics -- escape a bad investment in the Las Vegas Sportspark. McDonald worked on a deal that determined the city would spend $8 million on the facility. A district judge ruled in March 2001 there was no malfeasance on McDonald's behalf.

"If you put boxing gloves on, you better be ready to get punched," McDonald said. "That's what my dad always told me. If you don't want to get hit, don't get in the ring."

In 2000, he secretly recorded a one-on-one meeting with Goodman. The mayor, a resident of McDonald's ward, even signed a petition to have the councilman recalled.

McDonald took the beating -- and two years later a re-election bid seemed inevitable.

However, recent developments in an FBI investigation of political corruption involving Galardi family-owned strip clubs recast that corrupt light over McDonald once again. He works as a consultant on land development and zoning issues for the Galardis and receives monthly payments for his service. McDonald abstains from voting on any project involving the Galardis, his senior liaison said.

"There's only been two votes that we know of, and they were guys coming up for licensing," Henry said. "Those guys were friends he grew up with so he abstained."

But for a month or so, McDonald's 2003 campaign was quiet -- until one of his challengers and longtime foes stirred some trouble. In March, outspoken Peter "Chris" Christoff decided to create an unregistered pact -- the Committee to Oust Michael McDonald. The group, Christoff has said, consists of only one person -- himself.

The "committee" mailed more than 17,000 postcards, with a picture of McDonald labeled "Guilty" and dubbed a sleaze ball, as described by Goodman in the Review-Journal. "Wimp," "a piece of garbage" and "vermin" also made the card's list of derogatory terms.

At the time, McDonald didn't file a complaint.

As the primary election neared, McDonald appeared to be scrambling, Moncrief said. He sent out fliers claiming that Moncrief didn't live in the ward based on her driver's license at the time, her declaration to the state's Commission on Ethics dated Feb. 7, her vehicle registration and the mortgage of her home. Nevada law requires residents to notify the DMV of an address change within 10 days.

McDonald's flier made it simple: either Moncrief broke state law or she resides outside of the ward. It also noted that she never voted in the city or county.

Another flier glorified the fact that the Nevada Nurses' Alliance endorsed McDonald.

"There are three fliers he sent out that are real hits on me and no one could figure out why," Moncrief said. "Well, he was polling like I was, and he saw I was one point ahead."

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On April 8, Goodman, Weekly and Reese destroyed their opposition. McDonald didn't. Not only was he forced to the general election, but he was beat in the primary as Moncrief collected 48 percent of the vote to McDonald's 44 percent. Hell, if it wasn't for Christoff snagging 5 percent of the vote, Moncrief would've won outright.

Moncrief explained the results: "Maybe they met someone who is real -- a real person who is willing to listen and wants to listen to every voter. Lots of people say it's time for new blood in there."

McDonald and company attribute the results to a couple of factors. First, low voter turnout. The four point difference was only 250 votes (Moncrief collected 3,078 votes to McDonald's 2,828). Fewer voters showed up for this primary (6,408) than the total who showed up in 1999 to vote solely for McDonald (7,235).

"We have a large population that didn't vote," McDonald said. "At the door, I know what I'm winning by."

But Moncrief said her polling research shows she's up 20 points -- 52 percent to 32 percent.

"My poll is June 3," McDonald said. "Everybody can make their polls, but you have to consider the source."

Moncrief's source is Tony Dane, who's Republican father ran against Assemblyman David Parks in the District 41 general election last year. Dane planted another David Parks to run against the assemblyman in the Democratic primary, but the plant's name was removed from the ballot after he testified that he did not have a Nevada mailing address, driver's license or job.

Moncrief said she hired Dane for his automated phone services to invite ward residents to a campaign party at Big Dog's. He appeared at the party to see how many people showed and offered to help Moncrief throughout the election. She agreed, claiming that she didn't know his history.

Jim Ferrence, McDonald's campaign manager, believes another story, which involves sworn affidavits to the secretary of state that he says prove Moncrief is running a shady campaign.

Moncrief reported spending only $11,677 before the primary election. Ferrence says $45,000 of mysterious fliers that attacked McDonald and benefited Moncrief were not accounted for. Also, Ferrence questions unreported expenditures directly tied to what she did report.

"No matter how you try to break up the math, there's no way she reported everything," Ferrence says. "She claims she copied 30,000 sheets of paper off of her printer -- where's the $3,000 for the paper? Where's the first paper clip? Where's anything other than one trip to the printer and one phone bank? She didn't even list her stinkin' postage on the three mailers."

Moncrief said she printed 23,000 fliers on her home computer, mostly in black-and-white print. She is blunt when answering the accusation: "I didn't spend anymore money than reported."

Immediately after the primary election, Ferrence began constructing the formal complaint that links Stupak's money to Dane, and therefore links his money to Moncrief's campaign.

Remember, Stupak has a beef with McDonald allegedly because of his refusal to support Nevada Stupak's 1999 city council campaign. Dane worked on Nevada Stupak's campaign up until the 1999 primary.

However, the financial reports show that Stupak gave more to McDonald than Moncrief. McDonald reported a $2,000 Stupak contribution; Moncrief didn't report anything from the former gambling mogul.

George Harris, a political consultant who also worked on Nevada Stupak's campaign, swore in an affidavit that in January Bob Stupak solicited him to work as a consultant for a candidate he might run against McDonald. Stupak would pay $10,000 for Harris' services. The following day, according to Harris' statement, Stupak told Harris the candidate was his girlfriend, a nurse.

"When you have [Harris] -- who used to work for Stupak, ran Stupak's son's campaign, is friends with Stupak and has nothing to gain by giving us a sworn affidavit under oath that Stupak was behind the whole thing -- this is the biggest issue," McDonald said.

Harris solicited Dane to work as a consultant for McDonald, but Dane said he had already been approached by Moncrief's campaign to make phone calls for $30,000, the statement read.

Moncrief said that's bogus.

"If [Stupak] is campaigning or funding me, I'd fire him. I don't have one yard sign, nothing," Moncrief said. "I don't see how they can think I spend any money when I didn't have anything except for pieces of paper.

"The incumbent spent over a quarter million dollars on his campaign and he can't comprehend how I can spend $11,600 and accomplished what I accomplished," she continued. "The way I accomplished it was walking the ward night after night."

Also signing affidavits were Robert and Lillian Simpson. They claimed Christoff gloated about accepting money to aid Moncrief and destroy McDonald, and solicited them to run a phone bank. They would be paid $5,000.

"If they look on my financial report, I spent $4,700 for a phone bank from a company out of California called Competitive Edge," Moncrief said. "It's a phone bank with 18 years experience, so why would I hire a couple that has no experience and pay more for them than for a professional company?"

Christoff appeared on Jon Ralston's "Face to Face," saying that he did not receive cash and that his campaign against McDonald is funded and operated by him -- and him only -- despite not registering with the secretary of state as a third-party expenditure campaign.

Ferrence's complaint, however, appears to loosely connect Moncrief to a conspiracy. But Ferrence said the affidavits are convincing evidence.

"When you combine the Simpson's affidavit with the George Harris affidavit, I don't know what more there could be," Ferrence said. "These are people totally unrelated to one another saying exactly the same thing and swearing to it under the penalty of perjury."

Moncrief said since the primary she has received a check for $2,000 from Christoff, and that Bob Stupak has agreed to help her -- but she did not disclose any Stupak specifics.

"What we are talking about is where the money came from," McDonald said. "Mr. Christoff, if he had the money to spend to throw $10,000 to $15,000 around, where did the money come from? And that's what the secretary of state and IRS are going to investigate.

"To me, I'm running a positive campaign," McDonald said. "I'm talking about what we've accomplished in Ward 1, but it's funny how all these issues come to surface about who is really behind putting Janet up and who is really putting the money up."

Funny indeed.

After Moncrief was accused of being involved in a conspiracy with Stupak, Dane and Christoff, the Review-Journal reported May 10 that she was charged in 1994 for driving under the influence. That charge was reduced to careless driving after a breathalyzer test showed her blood alcohol content was below the legal limit. She failed a field test and refused to take a breathalyzer test at the scene, the R-J reported.

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Since the primary, Moncrief has avoided all opportunities to debate McDonald, including offered appearances on KXNT 840-AM and Ralston's "Face to Face." The two did meet May 7 at a breakfast held by Hispanics in Politics, where they essentially ignored one another. And when it came to the issues, McDonald clearly knew them better than his opponent.

"No one will talk about the issues in Ward 1," McDonald complained. "The other day we had a session with the Hispanics in Politics and Ms. Moncrief couldn't answer any questions. She has denied every debate. ... Sitting here throwing mud is not going to tell the ward what you are going to do in the next four years. I know my plans for the next four years."

Those plans include rebuilding the Mirabelli Senior and Recreation Center and building fire stations, affordable senior housing and a library. As for solutions to two issues lingering around downtown -- homelessness and the vacant 61-acre lot -- Moncrief and McDonald have similar visions. McDonald wants to involve regional government and various private entities to create a program that will help the homeless.

"The homeless need a hand up, not a hand out," McDonald said. "You give a person meaning and give them an opportunity to get on their feet, they will."

Moncrief suggests a stair-step program that offers shelter and work, and doesn't require tax money. The longer a homeless individual works, the more independent that person would become within the program, she said. A percentage of the person's earnings would go into a savings account, so when he finishes the program he would have some money.

With the notorious 61 vacant acres, Moncrief and McDonald believe affordable high-rise housing would improve and maintain business downtown.

"If you give people ownership of downtown, you'd be able to tie Fremont Street into the 61 acres and all the surrounding areas as well," McDonald said.

Offered Moncrief: "The reasons every major city in the United States, such as New York and Boston, make it so well is because there are a lot of people who live in the city, play in the city, eat in the city and do everything in the city."

The council has approved the hiring of two firms to design a master development plan, which will include an academic medical center, apartments, offices and businesses.

Moncrief would like to create a rehabilitation detox center downtown; McDonald counters that downtown already has a detox center and that rehabilitation is a state issue. Another Moncrief idea that McDonald discredits is her belief that a state law requiring new casinos have a 200-room minimum needs to be relaxed. She thinks it would spark business in other areas of the city, but McDonald says it would destroy downtown casinos and ruin the neighborhoods they'd open in.

"You want to talk about influx and destroying the integrity of neighborhoods -- there are 19 locations in and around Ward 1 that'll become casinos," McDonald said. "It'll destroy every infrastructure that has been set in.

"The whole thing about it is I'm not going to run a dirty campaign, but I am going to run a truthful campaign," McDonald said. "My whole issue is let's sit down and talk about the issues -- let's get it on and let's do it right in front of the neighborhood."

The neighborhood decides June 3.

Mike Zigler is a CityLife staff writer. He can be reached at 702-871-6780 ext. 306 or zigler@lvpress.com.