Tapped, with recall vote a possibility

Monday, June 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Boulder City Councilman Travis Chandler has $16 left in his 2007 campaign fund, which is $16 more than Councilwoman Linda Strickland has in her political treasury.

That, he admits, isn’t going to be enough to battle a possible recall campaign a year after he and Strickland were elected in what voters said was a call for change in the town’s politics.

Now the change being called for is to dump both rookie council members, who critics argue are harming the city with their talk about the financial struggles at the city-owned Boulder Creek Golf Course.

Petitions to recall Chandler and Strickland were filed Tuesday with 1,973 and 1,969 signatures, respectively.

Petitioners had to collect 1,085 signatures to place Strickland’s recall on the ballot and 1,268 for Chandler’s. The numbers are different because Strickland was elected in last year’s primary election, but Chandler was elected in the fall’s general election, which had a higher turnout.

If the signatures are certified by the Clark County Elections Division and validated by the secretary of state, a recall election likely will be held in late July or early August.

Chandler and Strickland said they have not begun raising money to fight the recall.

“I’m going to leave it to the people that support me,” Strickland said. “If the people want to keep me in office I’m sure they’ll come up with something.”

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The two council members could learn this week whether there will even be a recall campaign.

A Nevada secretary of state opinion issued last month said that only those who voted in the 2007 elections could sign recall petitions. So although hundreds more signatures than initially needed were gathered, some may be tossed out after a county and state review.

Strickland said she’d reviewed every signature on more than 500 pages of documents, comparing them with a registry of voters who participated in the election. She said less than half the people who signed the petition against her voted in the primary in which she won her seat.

“I think they have about 970 confirmed signatures against me and the rest are not valid,” she said. “I’m thinking they don’t have it.”

Chandler, though, figures he’ll be campaigning again much sooner than he anticipated.

“I’m surprised how many signatures they have,” Chandler said. “I’m not sure how many are valid. But as it stands we’ll have to assume that there will be a recall election.”

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Three North Las Vegas homes scheduled to be demolished to make way for the North Fifth Street Corridor burned to the ground late Tuesday and early Wednesday last week.

Fire investigators don’t think it was a coincidence that two small houses on North Fifth and another on neighboring East Carey Avenue burned within a nine-hour period. All of the properties are owned by the city.

The three homes were among more than 75 properties the city has purchased to expand North Fifth into a major commercial thoroughfare through the middle of the city from Las Vegas Boulevard North to the Las Vegas Beltway.

The city hopes the eight-lane road — three lanes in each direction, with two extra lanes for mass transit — will draw business to the older sections of North Las Vegas. The project’s first section is being built with about $140 million from the Regional Transportation Commission.

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North Las Vegas has decided not to hire consultants to study the growing city’s gaming market after all.

The city pulled an item off Wednesday’s council agenda that called for spending $12,500 to hire a consultant to analyze the demand for gaming in the city.

City spokeswoman Brenda Fischer said the city simply decided the study was not needed.

The call for the study came amid a flurry of gaming development planned over the next decade.

Boyd Gaming is proposing to move a large casino project from Lamb Boulevard and Centennial Parkway to the future Park Highlands master-planned community north of the Las Vegas Beltway, just west of Losee Road.

The Boyd casino would join Aliante Station, scheduled to open this year, along the beltway in an area that will be ground zero for future growth in North Las Vegas.

Five casinos also are planned within two miles of the beltway and Interstate 15 interchange, an area dubbed “Casino Alley” seen as a potential mini-Strip 10 miles north of the Strip.