LG Candidate Stavros Anthony Sits Down with The Globe

Las Vegas City Councilman, Mayor Pro-Tem Stavros Anthony is running for Lieutenant Governor claiming, over a great cup of coffee at one of his favorite local businesses, “Life is about opportunities and Lieutenant Governor is the best opportunity to serve the state of Nevada.”

Anthony is no stranger to public service. Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, he attended Wayne State University and needed to pick up an extra job to afford his way through school as he studied for a degree in Criminal Justice. His second job as a cadet with the Detroit Police Department, is when he realized that he wanted to be a police officer. Upon graduating in 1980, he heard Las Vegas was hiring and headed west with $500 bucks in his pocket, tested, passed and started in the LVMPD Academy three weeks later.

He worked for 10 years as a police officer, five years as a Sergeant, four years as a Lieutenant and the last 10 years as a Captain. During 29 years on the force, he received his masters and PhD and was elected to the Board of Regents in 2002. He was the first officer on the force to have advanced degrees and helped his colleagues advance and further their education.

When asked why he ran for the Board of Regents, Anthony replied, “Well, the state was expanding the districts and I lived in the new district. So, I grabbed six friends and ran a campaign and won. That is how I got my feet wet in politics.”

Upon his retirement in 2009, Ward 4 in Las Vegas became an open seat. “I was the only Republican in the race. There wasn’t a Republican elected to city council in 15 years. So I called Robert Uithoven and he became my campaign manager. I won by only 10 votes.”

I asked Anthony to compare policing and crime from the time he started with the LVMPD to today.

He replied:

When people were arrested back in the early part of my career, they were punished. They were held accountable for what they did. Today that doesn’t happen too much. The punishments and bail is much less. The police are still doing their job, but criminals are more likely to repeat offend and that is the biggest difference I see. In major cities, crime is out-of-control because of lax bail laws and lessened impacts to their behavior.

In Nevada were are pro law enforcement. I am on the accreditation board Calais and what were are noticing is that back in my day there was a lot of respect for police officers, but today there is a bigger chance for disrespect and resisting arrest. This lack of respect and resistance is getting harder and harder to recruit police officers.

I am on the Fiscal Affairs committee for the LVMPD. The city and county fund the LVMPD. The city funds 40% and the county funds 60%. I am always talking to the city attorney about misdemeanors and repeat offenders. Some repeat offenders start with misdemeanors and can get more violent and brazen as they continue to offend.

Every time we survey the constituents of Las Vegas, their number one concern is public safety. 70% of our budgets go to public safety. We have a duty to keep our city and our streets safe and deter this increase in violence, listen to our constituents and act accordingly.”

When asked how politics has changed in the years he has served in public office, Anthony noted:

It’s still the same. There are good guys and bad guys. I think the biggest issue that has changed over 20 years is election integrity. Todays elections can be easily stolen. The Democrats, in the middle of the night, passed mail in balloting, ballot harvesting and in session they passed automatic registration at the DMV. They don’t support Voter ID. Democrats have set up a system where it is simply easier to cheat.

The election was stolen from me in 2020. You can write that down. The election was stolen from me when I ran against Ross Miller for Clark County Commissioner in District C.

I was the Republican nominee for that district. There hadn’t been a Republican Commissioner in 15 years. I ran a good campaign. A great campaign. The day after election day I was up 1,700 votes. I thought that was the end of it. But, the next 10 days after the election, they counted the mail-in ballots. Every day I lost 60/40 of those ballots. When it was finally said and done, 10 days later, I lost by 10 votes out of 150,000 votes cast.

“Canvassing the Election” happens in every election. Clark County Registrar, Joe Gloria and the County Commissioners have this meeting to review and certify the numbers. But during this particular meeting, Gloria came in and said “All the elections are fine except for District C. I have 139 ballots and I don’t know who these people voted for.” Gloria then asked for a special election. The Commissioners voted 6-1 in favor of a special election. Commissioner Justin Jones was the only one who voted “No.”

Then, two weeks later they voted 7-0 to certify the election in spite of the prior vote. So, we decided to do a recount and I was charged $85,000 for it. The recount took a week. In the middle of the recount, Joe Gloria said I lost by 30. At the end of the recount, he said I lost by 15 votes. So, I went to court–but judges don’t want to get involved so they dismissed the case.

They don’t want a discussion on the county commission. They want to silence people. They have a super majority, a cabal, and that is exactly what they want–absolute power.

I asked Anthony why he didn’t run again for Commissioner. He replied:

I really don’t have a good answer for that, but people started calling me and when I started looking at opportunities to serve, I looked up the statute for Lieutenant Governor  (LG) and I had already been doing all of this for 40 years. So, I jumped in the race a little late in November.

There are five things LG is responsible for. First, the LG is the Chair of the Tourism Commission. Having served as Las Vegas Councilman for 12 years, I know a little bit about tourism and facilitated many projects.

The LG is also the Vice Chair of Transportation issues. I have a background of Captain of Transportation Safety Bureau and I currently sit on the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation commission.

Number three, the LG is responsible for Small Business Advocacy. I have been supporting small business and reducing fees and regulations and licensing requirements and making it easier to open up businesses in Las Vegas.

Governor Sisolak destroyed small businesses. Our Mom and Pop shops couldn’t survive while he kept the big box stores open. Mayor Goodman was one of the first ones who said “you can’t shut these businesses down. Let businesses decide what they want to do.” I worked together with the Mayor to support small businesses and keep them afloat in spite of the governor’s mandates.

I am always hearing how business owners, families and many of my constituents just want Biden and Sisolak to leave them alone. There is simply too much government interference in their daily lives and business lives. They are tired of government telling them what to do all the time. They are getting tired of this over-reaching government. They want us to listen to their needs, fix what needs to be fixed, and the rest of the time to let them live their lives.

Number four, the LG is responsible for homeland security. I have 29 years of experience in homeland security. And, number five, the LG is President of the Senate during legislative sessions. As Mayor Pro-Tem, I run city council meetings.

I am the only candidate that has experience in all five areas and everything that the LG does.  As president of the Senate, I will be an advocate for conservative, constitutional values.

In closing, I asked Anthony what he was most proud of throughout his career. He recalled:

Sun City Summerlin is in my ward and what I first heard from the residents is that they wanted their own fire station. So, I secured some land and we built Fire Station 107. I am most proud of that because it saved peoples lives in Sun City due to shorter response times. Also, pickleball. I secured land and had the first pickleball court built in the county. This allowed for a lot of seniors to socialize, get outside and get exercise. It’s been a great sport for our community.

Thinking back to my police days–when most people think of police officers they think of running and gunning and chasing. They don’t see us as solving problems. I had graffiti gone the next day. If there were junk cars, we got rid of them. Back in the day with foreclosed homes, I made sure they were taken care of–no broken windows, litter, graffiti or unkempt lawns. I am proud that I was able to keep neighborhoods looking nice. I also had a park built in my ward, Trigono Hills Park (Trigono is Greek for triangle). The park is always packed with families and kids and I just love it.