North Las Vegas mayor race features city councilman and state legislator

A two-term city councilman and a state lawmaker who serves as the Nevada Democratic Party chair are among the candidates seeking to be elected the next mayor of North Las Vegas.  

Five candidates are running to replace term-limited Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown, who was first elected in 2022 as the first Black mayor in Nevada. 

North Las Vegas City Councilman Scott Black, who was first elected in 2017 and currently serves as mayor pro tem, and Assemblymember Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who has represented Assembly District 1 since 2016, are all but assured to be the top candidates. 

The most recent campaign finance reports show Black raised $300,000 the first quarter of this year with $800,000 cash on hand while Monroe-Moreno raised $202,000 during the same period with nearly $290,000 in cash on hand.   

The three other candidates running are Gary Bouchard, Zaire Langdon, and Henry Thorns. 

A candidate who receives a majority of the vote in nonpartisan primary races wins the election outright.

Goynes-Brown is ineligible to seek another term because she has exceeded the state’s 12-year term limit rule. 

A City of North Las Vegas resident sued to challenge Black’s eligibility under the same rule arguing that he would exceed the 12 years limit if elected. The case was recently dismissed this month, which allowed Black to remain in the race. 

In an interview, Black said the case was politically motivated and it was “plain and clear language of the Constitution that says that I’m eligible.”

“From day one, when I heard about the lawsuit, I was confident that I would be on the ballot, and the voters would decide who would be the next mayor of North Las Vegas, not the courts,” Black said, who if elected as mayor would be limited to one term.

Monroe-Moreno argued the people of North Las Vegas need “a mayor who would be elected that could serve them for the next 12 years if blessed to do so with re-election.”

As a state lawmaker, speaker pro tem and the chair of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Monroe-Moreno said she has “had the opportunity to shepherd the state through a budget deficit and a budget surplus.” That experience, she said, translates to her ability to lead the city and give her better leverage working with the legislature. 

Black said he has already been a “big part of the city’s turnaround and recovery from the economic downturn.” If elected, he said, he could build on the work he has already done while on council. 

While Monroe-Moreno has served as a state lawmaker representing North Las Vegas, Black said it is not the same as being a city official. 

“With all due respect to Carson City, that’s 400-plus miles from here,” Black said. “What I do every day is nonpartisan for North Las Vegas. I’ve been doing the work for the last nine years. I truly feel – no disrespect to any of my opponents – that I’m the best person to do the job.” 

Jobs, jobs, jobs

North Las Vegas has come a long way to get back on stable footing since the economic downtown, Black said. The city was nearing bankruptcy in 2013. 

“If you look at where North Las Vegas was 10 years ago compared to where we are today, we’re a distinctly different place with new opportunities, new growth, and new development,” he said.

The city’s unemployment rate is still 5.8%, slightly higher than the state’s 5.3%. 

He said the city is heading in the right direction with new investment and business ventures helping to grow the area.

“People are working today just to build the infrastructure to continue building the warehouses, distribution centers, data centers, and light manufacturing that will employ people into the future decades ahead,” Black said.

The higher unemployment numbers in the city, Monroe-Moreno said, are “telling us that we’re going in the wrong direction.”

“I don’t think there probably is one reason why our unemployment numbers have gone up and not in the other direction as other cities have here in Southern Nevada,” Monroe-Moreno said.

One thing she hopes to prioritize if elected is ensuring new businesses that move to the city would prioritize hiring residents of North Las Vegas. 

“Will we find every job filled by a North Las Vegas resident? Probably not,” she said. “If it’s not a North Las Vegas resident, I’d like for it to be someone from Clark County, someone from the state of Nevada.

She said she always wants to look at partnerships with local colleges and labor unions to build out apprenticeship programs that ensure “our residents are prepared for those jobs.”

Housing

Both candidates say they have worked to address Nevada’s housing shortage. 

Black points to efforts taken by the city to add more than “1,400 affordable housing units in our community since 2017.”

“There are 500 more that are in planning,” he said. “Is that a drop in the bucket?  Maybe. But we are doing something to create sustainability and access to homes that people can pay for.”

During her time in the legislature, Monroe-Moreno sponsored legislation that appropriated $30 million to the Nevada Housing Division to be allocated to permanent supportive housing projects, which are subsidized for populations with significantly low or no income

There have been several attempts to rein in corporate homeowners from purchasing excessive amounts of single family homes across Nevada, and Monroe-Moreno has voted for them, but they have all failed to get enacted. Monroe-Moreno wants to look into ways North Las Vegas might be able to address the problem at the city level. 

Monroe-Moreno said she wants to address steep rent increases and look at a “stabilization plan of how much rent can go up, so that a family, and especially my seniors, can manage and basically budget.”

The Culinary Union sought to bring a ballot initiative in the 2022 North Las Vegas election that sought to prevent rent increases in the city from exceeding cost of living increases and could not exceed 5% from year to year. 

Nevada law says that in order for an initiative petition to qualify it must receive signatures of at least 15% “of the voters who voted at the last preceding general county or municipal election.” 

The union and the city manager spared over the interpretation of the law. In a 4-1 vote, the city council sided with the city manager, killing the ballot initiative. Black voted in support of the city manager’s interpretation. 

In a recent interview, Black said the Culinary’s measure was  “a one size fits all” solution that was inappropriate for the community.

“I think that if you’re looking at a rent stabilization measure or concept, I haven’t really studied it in terms of its use in other areas to measure its efficacy,” he said. “If there was an intent to do that, it would make sense to do it at a statewide level. If not a statewide level, at least a regional level, meaning all of Clark County.”

Local government officials and state lawmakers have been at odds about whether municipalities already have the jurisdiction to enact tenants protections or rent stabilization. 

“We do have local municipalities that have a lot more authority than maybe they have expressed in the past and maybe, for whatever reason, have not acted on it,”  Monroe-Moreno said.