Incumbent Segerblom facing three challengers in District E

Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom is well aware of at least one disadvantage to running for office as an incumbent.

“In this day and age, you just don’t know: when a lot of people are saying ‘throw the bums out,’” he said. “So, if you’re an incumbent, they don’t want you.”

To counter that, he said, he is shaking hands and selling his message to as many voters as possible in his District E, which includes part of the Strip and the predominantly Latino east Las Vegas.

“I take this very seriously,” he said.

His challengers are Republican primary winner Jon Rider, third-party candidate Randy Rose and independent Marco Hernandez, the Laborers Local 872 vice president who ran a tight race against Segerblom in the 2018 Democratic primary.

“There’s a strong independent running,” Segerblom said about Hernandez, “so, we’ll have to see what he does.”

Independent Joette Luiz, who could not be reached for comment, will not be in the November ballot, according to a Clark County spokesman.

Segerblom leads in fundraising, having reported nearly a quarter-million dollars raised from January to August, with $270,000 in his coffers.

Hernandez’s campaign had $46,000 on hand of the $74,450 he had raised this year through mid-July. Rose had $29.87 left from the $1,148 he raised. Rider had raised nothing.

Longtime lawmaker

Segerblom, a former state senator and assemblyman instrumental in the legalization of marijuana in Nevada, said that although the pandemic hampered much of his first term as commissioner while he was “running around trying to put out fires,” he enjoys his job.

He won his June primary with 61 percent of the vote.

“You always hate to say that you’re running (for re-election) because now you know more than you knew before, and you know what you’re doing,” he said. “But the truth is, I think I’ve done a good job for four years.”

Now in post-pandemic recovery, he said, the commission has more bandwidth to fully address other issues, such as the shortages of affordable housing and water.

The county is “in pretty good shape,” he said.

He wants to improve the quality of life in east Las Vegas, such as addressing heat islands and building a highway interchange.

“So, just things like that where we can work and make it look more like Summerlin as opposed to just a poor area that people don’t care about,” he said.

He touted his work with work with the redevelopment agency and the “day to day” issues like cleaning up and rejuvenating neighborhoods through code enforcement and trash pickups.

A member of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, he supports rent control or at the very least cracking down on out-of-state hedge funds buying up homes and increasing rents.

But more homes need to be built to relieve increasing housing costs, he said. The commission recently approved a $120 million investment to build or refurbish about 3,100 homes for lower-income residents.

Labor leader

Marco Hernandez came fewer than 200 votes shy of defeating Segerblom in the 2018 Democratic primary. He said he hasn’t stopped campaigning since, noting that “the district is still divided.”

“People are fed up that the district is still neglected, and they want to see change,” he said. “Hopefully that’ll reflect back in November.”

His main focus would be on properly funding emergency services.

He chastised what he described Segerblom’s increased attention on legal pot and national issues. Hernandez, who feels comfortable running as an independent because he said wants to represents all constituents, said that he would have an open-door policy and that he would be easily be reached by phone.

Hernandez said he would help streamline the application and permit process for businesses trying to move in the district and would make sure the “right projects” qualify.

Hernandez, a long-term construction professional who worked through the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Great Recession, says he understands how to put people back to work and the needs of the community during a crisis.

“It’s never over until the last day,” he said. “I’m not going to stop until the last day, Election Day.”

Republican nominee

A veteran in the nightlife industry as a marketing and customer development professional, Rider says he saw first-hand the effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on the local economy.

Had he been on the commission board — which he noted is made up of all Democrats who uncritically “rubber stamped” all of Gov. Steve Sisolak’s policies — he would’ve been a dissenting voice advocating to wind down restrictions and open businesses sooner.

Rider earned 64.5 percent of the Republican vote during June’s primary.

Having caught COVID, and having been vaccinated against it, he said he understood the dangers of the illness, but that “the mitigation efforts, especially after the vaccines were available, went too far and hurt more than they helped.”

To help the economy recover, he said he wants to see the county streamline business licenses and eliminate red tape. A friend of his, Rider said, has waited a year to obtain a new fire code permit after he adjusted the design of his restaurant.

“Things like that don’t need to happen,” Rider said.

“Whatever my chances are against him (Segerblom), that’s fine,” Rider said, pointing out that he hasn’t raised any money for his campaign. “But at the same time, I’m not beholden to anybody,” he added about donors.

He supports water conservation efforts, such as those in Arizona to limit golf course operations, but noted that the water shortages also can be blamed on bad management from water authorities.

Rider said government housing doesn’t work, but making it easier for builders to get development permits can help bring prices down.

He supports the marijuana industry, but also wants to hold the county accountable for how tax dollars are spent. He said that the commission has over-taxed and abandoned the industry. He noted that the county has a fund to help expunge marijuana convictions, a policy he agrees with, but that at the same time the process is too hard and expensive.

Rider said he worries about diversifying the economy too much and leaving out the hospitality industry. “Hospitality is what built this state, we can’t let it go,” he said.

Monorail expansion

“I’ve been living in Clark County a while, and I see and talk to people that needs things that aren’t being addressed,” said Rose, of the Independent American Party.

He said he wants the Las Vegas Monorail on the Strip to be placed under the Regional Transportation Commission and expanded valley wide and connected with bus routes.

To address the water shortage, he would explore connecting Lake Tahoe to Lake Mead via an “aqueduct” so when the Northern Nevada body gets excess water, some of that supply flows south.

“When the water is gone, everything is gone,” he said. “(We) can’t wait until the last minute.”

The retired stock market broker said that he would vote against a sales tax increase and that mental health would be a priority.

Rose, who lost the Republican primary for the seat in 2018, said he has been meeting voters in the district the past eight years and continues to campaign.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow @rickytwrites on Twitter.

An earlier version of this story misattributed quotes from Independent American Party member Randy Rose to Republican Jon Rider.