There will be several new faces in local Mesquite governance while several others will remain in their positions after the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Following the results of the June primary election, Brian Wursten came in first in the Mesquite city council election taking 20.56 percent of the vote. Incumbent George Rapson will keep his seat on the city council coming in second with 19.26 percent of votes. Local businessman David Ballweg took the third seat on city council with 17.90 percent of votes barely edging out sitting Councilwoman Cindi Delaney by 61 votes. Ballweg will fill the remaining two years of the term Al Litman had when he was elected to council five and a half years ago.
Litman easily won the mayor’s seat he was appointed to in 2014 when incumbent mayor Mark Weir resigned. Litman took 74.25 vote against Art Pereida, a newcomer to the political scene in Mesquite.
The mayor and newly elected councilmen will take their seats at the end of November.
Travis Anderson, also a newcomer, beat Sandra Ramaker for the Mesquite seat on the Virgin Valley Water District Board of Directors when he took 52.40 percent of the vote. The incumbent Ramaker was running for the seat she’s held since 2010. Anderson will join the Board in January.
Judy Metz kept her at-large seat on the Overton Power District #5 Board of Trustees easily beating Mesquite resident David Bennett with 51.49 percent of the vote.
Republican Cresent Hardy lost his bid for re-election to the 4th Congressional District seat when Democrat Ruben Kihuen took 48.9 percent of the vote to Hardy’s 44.55 percent. Hardy beat Democrat Steven Horsford two years ago taking most of the rural counties vote.
With Democrats winning two other congressional races in Nevada that leaves only one of four representatives in Republican hands.
Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto won the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Harry Reid when she took 47.07 percent of the statewide vote to Republican Joe Heck’s 44.7 percent.
All statewide ballot issues were approved by voters including expanded gun ownership background checks, recreational marijuana, competitive energy markets and tax exemption of medical equipment. Clark county voters also approved an extension of fuel revenue tax indexing.
See chart below:
So we’ve been told for years that the majority of Mesquite residents want a non smoking policy in our Casino’s. Seems odd that the one City Council candidate that concurred with that position received the fewest votes in a 6 person race. You don’t suppose that we’ve been lied to, do you?
Ramaker should have worked for the people instead of the casinos
Rapson – the choir boy for Premier Realtors managed to make it so The good ol boys still have a piece of the action helping Geno with there hidden agenda and helping Premier get a inside track on real estate and land deals here in mesquite.
CAN YOU SAY CONFLICT OF INTEREST- lol
It should be an interesting two years with Dave Ballweg on the Council. Dave Ballweg should start by prohibiting any real estate dealings between the City of Mesquite and Premier Realtors. There are other realtors in Mesquite who do not have a principal and employee on the Council. The handling of the sale of the City land for the truck stop by a company owned by Geno was an outright ethical fraud. He should return whatever commission his company made on the sale. No more insider deals. Period.