After the primary election in June, Las Vegas voters selected two candidates to compete to become the new mayor.

On November 5th, 2024, voters will decide whether they want to see Victoria Seaman or Shelley Berkley take on the role.  

Victoria Seaman was a Nevada Assemblywoman in 2015 and has been a Las Vegas City Councilwoman for Ward 2 since 2019. Ward 2 encompasses the West Summerlin Boca Park area, starting at Desert Inn and Hualapai and expanding further west than the 215 in some sections.   

Seaman’s Experience As An Assemblywoman

As an assemblywoman, Seaman tackled monumental issues her constituents brought to her attention.  

Seaman said when she decided to run for assembly, she already had issues that were important to her, such as businesses being overtaxed and overregulated by the government. Then, when speaking with community members, she learned there were other critical issues on voters’ minds.

Squatting

One example was squatting. After Seaman learned that squatting was a civil issue and the police couldn’t help homeowners get squatters out of their houses, she decided she wanted to make squatting a crime in Nevada. Seaman and Assemblyman Edgar Flores worked with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to make squatting illegal.

“We didn’t know that they would turn this into such a lucrative crime. So I’m grateful that we did it in 2015,” Seaman said.

Occupational Licensing Reform Bill

Seaman also worked on the Occupational Licensing Reform Bill and created new opportunities for makeup artists in Nevada. This bill was created after a non-profit came to her to ask for her assistance because a husband and wife had put their life savings towards opening a special effects makeup school called L Makeup Institute, and the board of cosmetology shut them down because they weren’t teaching hair and skincare. “I found out if I tweak the law to say ‘if you’re doing makeup in a non-cosmetological establishment, you don’t have to be regulated under the law,'” Seaman said.

Seaman says that after changing the law, L Makeup Institute was able to operate and eventually expanded from a 2,000-square-foot location to an 11,000-square-foot location in Tivoli Village and now has a second location in Texas.

“Government can either stifle you or help you be successful,” Seaman says.

Guardianship Laws

“When she believes in something, she’ll move heaven and earth,” Rana Goodman from Vegas Voice Magazine says.

While Seaman was running for assembly, Goodman called Seaman and invited her to lunch because Goodman and her partner Dan Roberts from Vegas Voice Magazine had discovered senior citizens were being taken advantage of in Nevada—and the law allowing it to happen needed to be fixed.

Seaman explains they met at a café in Summerlin where Goodman told her, “There is something going on in this state that is criminal, but it’s not a crime. There are private guardianships that are working with the courts, and they’re taking over people’s lives.”

In Nevada at that time, if someone’s children or extended family members lived out of state, a professional private guardian could deem them unfit to care for themselves, take guardianship over them, put them in an assisted living facility, and take control over their assets.

Seaman was in disbelief that seniors could be taken advantage of in this way, so she independently investigated and verified the guardianship laws, discovered everything was true, and made it her mission to fix it.

Goodman says that after Seaman was elected, Goodman and her significant other were on their way to Seaman’s office to discuss the guardianship issues with her. Goodman and her significant other had stopped in to chat with another assemblyman and something her significant other said had bothered the assemblyman. The assemblyman told Goodman, “I’ll make sure your bill doesn’t hit the floor.”

So, Goodman went to Seaman’s office, where she was relaxing with her shoes off, and told her about what had just transpired. Seaman told Goodman, “Over my dead body,” and ran to the disgruntled assemblyman’s office barefoot to resolve the issue. Seaman returned, dusting her hands, and told them everything was taken care of.

Seaman says she worked with, at the time, Minority Leader Marilyn Kirkpatrick, who’s now a county commissioner, to get the bill passed to protect senior citizens.

Roberts says, “She must have a big heart.” She works on defending animals and senior citizens. That’s “everything you need to know.”

Animal Saftey

Seaman’s proudest accomplishment as a councilwoman is her work with the Animal Foundation— the city of Las Vegas’s animal shelter.

“I brought forth great changes in redoing the contract, putting out a request for a proposal to try to get a new partner. But even if we end up with the same partner, there are massive changes that we haven’t seen in decades because we’ve seen over 26,000 dogs euthanized there when it was a no-kill shelter,” Seaman says.

Seaman explained that the other issue affecting the Animal Foundation was illegal breeding. So, they also created stricter penalties for illegal breeders.

Illegal Fireworks

In Ward 2, illegal fireworks are a big issue, and while people were getting ticketed, the fines weren’t deterring people from lighting them off. So, Seaman said they brought stiffer fines to discourage people from setting off illegal fireworks.

Animal safety and illegal fireworks are two evergreen issues for voters. Another issue that has recently been a hot-button topic in Las Vegas is homelessness.

Homelessness

Seaman voted to support the camping ban in Las Vegas, which makes it illegal to set up a tent or temporary shelter in a public right of way if there are beds available at homeless shelters like the Courtyard— a homeless resource center where people can sleep and get access to medical treatment.

Seaman says the camping ban “gives us the ability to get people into services and protect our businesses.”

Affordable Housing

Intertwined with homelessness is another issue on voters’ minds, which is affordable housing.

Seaman says the city has already been doing great things with affordable housing, and she wants to continue doing that.

She says they are working with developers to give them tax increment financing and working with them on state and federal grants. Her goal is also to continue doing mixed-usage affordable housing where complexes have regular rents and some renters make 60% to 80% of the average medium income, which she says is “workforce affordable housing.”

She explained that they also have senior housing, where tenants make 60% of the average median income.

Supporting Las Vegas’s Growing Population

Homelessness and affordable housing are becoming more pressing issues for voters due to Las Vegas’s rapid growth.

Seaman says to support the expansion of Las Vegas, “We can still keep our national parks and areas for hiking,” but getting some of Southern Nevada’s land back from the federal government will be essential.

Then, along with a large influx of people, comes an increased need for employment opportunities.

“As a councilman, I’ve been very active with trying to bring manufacturing and different businesses here from California,” Seaman says. She also offers businesses incentives to move their operation to the Valley, which she’d like to continue doing as mayor.

Public Safety

“We need to make sure as fast as we’re growing that we become one of the safest cities in the Union,” she says, “my vision and my pledge is to make this a safe city. A law and order city.”

Currently, she works with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on community engagement in Ward 2. But, as mayor, she could work with them all over the city.

Seaman says government is about finding common sense solutions that work. She believes voters need to do their research and elect people with real-life experience.

“She’s very good at listening,” Roberts says. Not many public servants are, “She listens and cares!”

You can learn more about Victoria Seaman on her website: https://victoriaseaman.com/