One of the initial votes for Las Vegas Mayor-elect Shelley Berkley will be to settle the long-running land-use dispute between the City of Las Vegas and the owner of the defunct Badlands golf course.

The Las Vegas City Council agreed Wednesday to suspend a vote settling the case until Dec. 18, allowing attorneys for the city and Badlands owner Yohan Lowie to continue negotiating a dollar amount to resolve the case. By the time the city council considers a settlement, Berkley will have been sworn in as mayor.

An item to discuss and vote on a plan to settle the nine-year legal matter by paying between $250 million and $286 million to the developer, was announced last week. The settlement range is far below the $450 million to $650 million taxpayers would have been facing in lawsuits filed by the developer.

“I would love for it to go through,” Berkley said Wednesday, hours after she was declared winner of the Las Vegas mayoral race, defeating Councilwoman Victoria Seaman by nearly 13,000 votes as of Wednesday evening.

Seaman, who has two years remaining on her term representing Ward 2, made the motion to bring the matter back to the council next month. She sat in on one of the settlement talks.

“I'm confident that we will have a good settlement,” Seaman said.

Berkley, 73, who spent 14 years in Congress before narrowly losing a high-stakes U.S. Senate race in 2012, said she was ecstatic about winning a race to represent her hometown. She will be sworn in Dec. 4.

Berkley said her initial effort will be to meet with the city’s department heads, getting to know her way around city government and focusing on her campaign issues, such as homelessness and helping businesses and developers.

She compared moving into Las Vegas City Hall to her first days in Congress and as CEO of Touro University Nevada, a private medical school in Henderson. She said she has to be a fast learner.

“I always remember that overwhelming feeling during orientation for representatives [in Congress],” Berkley said. “But I figured it out relatively quickly, and think I did a very credible job for my constituents.”

Mayor Carolyn Goodman was term-limited. She succeeded her husband, mob lawyer Oscar Goodman, who began the family’s hold on the office in 1999. 

Berkley was endorsed by four of the council members — Brian Knudsen, Olivia Díaz, Nancy Brune and Cedric Crear, who finished third in the mayoral primary with almost 19 percent.

Meanwhile, Berkley will be joined on the city council by Democratic Assemblywoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong, who defeated Democratic former Assemblyman Cameron C.H. Miller in the race to replace Crear as the District 5 representative.

Summers-Armstrong represents Assembly District 6 and Miller represented Assembly District 7 before his resignation. Summers-Armstrong had nearly 53 percent of the vote.

Berkley said Wednesday morning she had yet to speak with Seaman, a former one-term Republican assemblywoman who was elected to the city council during a special election in 2019 to finish the term of a councilman who resigned. 

Clark County Commission

Attorney April Becker will become the first Republican in 20 years elected to the Clark County Commission, defeating Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod (D-Las Vegas) in the race to represent District C.

The seat is being vacated by Democrat Ross Miller, who didn’t seek re-election. As of Wednesday evening, she led her opponent by 7 percentage points.

In an interview Wednesday, Becker said she doesn’t want her constituents to think about her party registration. 

“I'm not going into this office as a Republican. I'm going in as a person who cares,” Becker said. “I want people in my district to know that they can contact me if they have a problem and don't think that I won't call them back.”

Becker, who represents her family’s development companies, earned her undergraduate degree from UNLV and her law degree from the Boyd School of Law.

“I think it's refreshing to have a different person, a different perspective and someone willing to ask the questions in public and get answers for people that they deserve,” Becker said. “I look at this as an employee. I'm going to work for the people in my district.”

Two other county commissioners up for re-election, Marilyn Kirkpatrick and William McCurdy, handily defeated their challengers.

The District A race remains too close to call. Incumbent Michael Naft has a less than 1 percentage point lead over Republican Ryan Hamilton. Naft extended his lead late Wednesday night by more than 2,500 votes as additional tallies were recorded by the Clark County Election Department.

North Las Vegas City Council

Small-business owner Robert “Twixx” Taylor took a 21-vote lead over North Las Vegas City Councilwoman Ruth Garcia-Anderson late Wednesday night. Garcia-Anderson led the race since election day. She is seeking her first full term for the Ward 2 seat. More than 19,700 votes have been counted in the race.

Garcia-Anderson was appointed to her seat by the city council in December 2022 after then-Councilwoman Pamela Goynes-Brown was elected mayor. She is the first Latina to serve on the city council. 

Taylor, the owner of Fade ‘Em All barber shops, had 38 more votes than Garcia-Anderson in the June primary. 

Henderson City Council

Henderson City Councilman Dan Shaw, who was first appointed to the Ward 2 seat in 2017, lost his bid for a second four-year term. He was defeated by Monica Larson, a paralegal who has a doctorate in clinical psychology. She led by about 12 percentage points as of Wednesday evening.

Shaw is facing several lawsuits for making illegal payday loans through Green Arrow Solution, a tribal lender he controls with a business partner.

Henderson ballot questions

Henderson voters overwhelmingly rejected two small property tax increases. Both measures were trailing Wednesday, each with less than 40 percent of the vote.

Question 1 would have added 6 cents in property tax per $100 of assessed value to issue as much as $27.5 million in bonds to build or modernize Henderson Fire Department facilities.

Question 1 for the Henderson District Public Libraries would have increased property taxes by 2 cents per $100 assessed value for 30 years to help maintain existing libraries and build new locations.

Updated at 6:24 a.m. on 11/7/2024 to reflect ballot count changes in two races.