By Mark Waite and Bill Roberts
The Republican Party in Nye County is coming apart at the seams, or a least it seemed that way at the party’s convention in Tonopah this weekend.
Nye County Republican Party Central Committee Chairman Fely Quitevis said she is planning to file a complaint with the state Republican Party over alternate delegates who weren’t seated at the convention.
Party officials looked for possible alternates living in precincts that didn’t have delegates at the convention, Quitevis said. In the Winery precinct, nine delegates were elected at the Republican caucus but none were in attendance Saturday, she said.
Nevada Revised Statutes require the Republican Party Central Committee to appoint a delegate if there is a vacancy, but convention organizers refused to seat them, Quitevis said.
Out of 243 delegates only 155 were seated, she said.
Quitevis said she left the convention early out of fear — many of the party faithful were packing pistols. She said she also left after Pahrump resident Andy Alberti, a candidate for Nye County commissioner, was named convention chairman.
Quitevis said she had received a death threat on her voice mail telling her to go to a foreign country or the callers would make her life miserable –she suspected the caller was in the audience.
Speaking of the audience, Quitevis said, “They were rowdy, unruly and they harassed some of the delegates.”
Quitevis said a Filipino in attendance was asked for her driver’s license.
“I’m beginning to believe they are racist. They are after me because I’m a Filipino,” she said.
If there was a violation of the law, NRS 293.137, Quitevis said the convention will be null and void. She pledged to get letters from people who were harassed at the convention.
Despite the rowdiness, several office seekers were allowed to briefly lay out their ideas. Candidates were told to limit their remarks to five minutes. So the half-dozen or so candidates could do little more than introduce themselves and give a general overview of their platform.
And because they were only given time to speak during the convention’s lunch recess, they were speaking to only a small percentage of the delegates, alternates and observers who packed the room during the morning session.
Four candidates for the GOP nod in the U. S. Congressional District Four race made presentations.
Barbara Cegavske has served in the Nevada Senate since 2003, was an assemblyman from 1997-2001 and lists her occupation as a consultant.
She said it is imperative that Republicans win the seat and blasted the only Democrat in the race saying, “You don’t want Horsford.” She said the nine GOP candidates are “all in the race for the right reason” and the party must support its primary winner.
Kiran Hill spent most of the last 10 years in the Middle East, has worked for the Department of Defense and served with the U.S. Marine Corps.
He said he decided to run after becoming active in the GOP caucuses. He pledged never to vote for spending or tax increases, opposes foreign aid and says the right to bear arms is fundamental.
Dan Schwartz is a Las Vegas businessman who says he has “successfully managed small businesses for 25 years.”
He outlined his vision of the important aspects of American life which he said have been lost and said, “We have to get that back.” He pledged to live up to his billing as a constitutional conservative.
And Danny Tarkanian is a law school graduate and small business owner in Las Vegas. He also is involved with the Tarkanian Basketball Academy, a non-profit organization focused on working with at-risk youth.
As a lifetime Nevadan, he said he is worried about the direction of our country and is concerned for his children’s future, vowing to “shake up” Washington.
State Assembly minority leader Pete Goicoechea is unopposed in the primary election for state senate district 19, the sprawling district which covers the majority of Nevada geographically.
He said he is running on his record of opposing tax increases and favoring the downsizing of government. A third generation Nevada rancher, he said, “I’m here for you.”
Walt Grudzinski of Pahrump is a Republican candidate to replace retiring Ed Goedhart in Assembly District 36.
He is running on a platform of no new taxes, balanced budgets and improving Nevadans’ quality of life. He questioned why there is a great highway from Las Vegas to the Nye County line near Pahrump but the same quality does not continue once one enters this county.
And non-partisan Kimberly Wanker spoke to the group asking support for her retention as district judge in department one of the Fifth Judicial District, the nation’s third largest judicial district geographically.
An appointee by the governor to replace the late John Davis, she believes “if you do the crime, you do the time.” She outlined her service on the bench to date and said she is proud to have served previously overseeing drug courts, a system that she is espousing for Tonopah in the near future.
-
- B.J. Roberts / Special to the Pahrump Valley Times – The 11-hour long GOP convention at the Ramada Inn in Tonopah on Saturday turned into a fiasco, according to the party’s top local official. Fely Quitevis, Nye County GOP Central Committee chairman, said she left early after being threatened. She called some delegates racists.
Well the whole “convention” sounded like a lot of fun. I especially like this:
“Walt Grudzinski of Pahrump is a Republican candidate to replace retiring Ed Goedhart in Assembly District 36.
He is running on a platform of no new taxes, balanced budgets and improving Nevadans’ quality of life. He questioned why there is a great highway from Las Vegas to the Nye County line near Pahrump but the same quality does not continue once one enters this county.”
Ok. How do you expect a road to be turned into a “great highway” if you are opposed to government spending??????
Umm, he is not opposed to government spending if you actually read what was written.
Well, it’s not the Republican Party in Nye County and I had heard of the disaster that was the Convention this past weekend. BUT.. look up the ladder at the religious nut-cases and perverts at State and Federal level. Not since the great Phoenix asylum fire of ’54 has there been so many flamin crazies running around at one time.
I’m ready to sign off the GOP after a lifetime of trying to support Republican issues. Sadly, the attacks on women and pro-life evangelical craziness have totally turned me off from supporting the present candidates.
As for the highway issue Carol addressed… the Nye County Commission can (but won’t) make the safety of citizens of Nye County a priority issue. Highway 160 from Boothill Dr to Highway 95 is a life threatening hazard but the issue is spoken of at Planning Commission meetings and BoCC members have written e-mails confirming their understanding of the hazard without anything positive being done. Can anyone tell me why the BoCC can’t go to NDOT and the Governor or at least write letters demanding the State fix this highway?
Re-elect NOBODY!!!!
Sorry “J”, there is no money to repair a highway that doesn’t even have a shoulder.
$3,270,000.00 went to ONE intersection at Homestead/160. Sure it’s nice, but to make it safer, there must be a minimum of 27 lights per intersection? There was no accidents after they installed the “temporary” lights. So what did we get for $3.27mil? The NDOT is the most out-of-control, wasteful , department in the state.
Don’t get me started……………….
Well that’s one side of the story. The truth is a bit different. It’s apparent that Fely does not understand the difference between a delegate and a NCRCC member. The NRS and our bylaws state in multiple places that “Only person’s elected at the precinct meetings may vote”. They can still become members of the NCRCC, which is not in dispute, but why would any sane person believe that after you begin a representative process by electing delegates, that a person could then just appoint her friends to fill any vacant spots? Why even have precinct meetings then?
So the turmoil at the convention was based on the fact that Fely appointed dozens of people who had not participated in the process. If they wanted to be delegates, then they could have campaigned in their neighborhoods, and gone to the precinct meetings and gotten elected like the rest of us.
Additionally, once the ELECTED DELEGATES were seated, a great deal of business was completed. We adopted new convention rules, new bylaws, and made progress on a good set of platform planks for our party. We adjourned only two hours late after not really getting started until 2pm. Hopefully this is the beginning of a vital, and active Republican Party organization in the County, rather than the secretive private club we have had in the past. We have the most important election in our lifetimes coming up in November, and having a party that favors an open, honest process will be a big benefit.
I was co-captain for the Precinct 24 caucus and one of the delegates elected by our caucus to the Nye County Republican Convention this past Saturday.
Fely Quitevis attempted to seat two delegates that were not elected as delegates at the caucus to our delegation at the convention; she attempted to seat other unelected delegates in other caucuses.
The Nevada Revised Statutes concerning the authority of the Nye County Republican Central Committee to appoint delegates at the Nye County Republican Convention can be found at http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-293.html and are very specific. The Central Committee (not its chairman) may appoint delegates when a precinct has not held a caucus meeting and is sending zero delegates to the convention.
Fely Quitevis took it upon herself to exceed her legal authority by appointing delegates to precincts that had held caucus meetings and elected both delegates and alternates, and demanded that these appointees be seated with delegates legally elected at the caucuses. She charged these apppointees $40 to attend the convention.
In doing so, Fely Quitevis violated both Nevada’s election laws and laws regarding raising funds for a political party. A ruling by the State’s Attorney General may be necessary to determine whether in doing so Fely Quitevis committed serious crimes.
Fely Quitevis attempted to hold the Nye County Republican Convention hostage by refusing to proceed to the election of a convention chairman, as required by the ByLaws, until her illegally appointed “delegates” were seated among the legally elected delegates.
Her action in now attempting to invalidate the results of the convention — and her attempt to deflect notice of her own criminal activity by claiming racism — is scandalous.
J. Neil Schulman
We can thank the Ron Paul nutjobs for this. They were horrifying and were behind a whole lot of this. Next time let the ADULTS run the meeting and the Ru Paul nuts please stay home
If being an “adult” means the chair of the Nye County Republican Central Committee attempting to stack the convention by illegally appointing her cronies in a blatant attempt to preserve the power of her RINO faction, that in the tradition of the Founding Fathers who threw out one set of crooks, I’m delighted to be a “nut job” standing up for not replacing rule of law with rule by capricious dictatorship.
NRS 293.137 Election of delegates to county convention; procedure if precinct fails to elect delegates; certificates given to elected delegates; state central committee to adopt written procedural rules.
1. Promptly at the time and place appointed therefor, the mass meeting must be convened and organized for each precinct. If access to the premises appointed for any such meeting is not available, the meeting may be convened at an accessible place immediately adjacent thereto. The meeting must be conducted openly and publicly and in such a manner that it is freely accessible to any registered voter of the party calling the meeting who resides in the precinct and is desirous of attending the meeting, until the meeting is adjourned. At the meeting, the delegates to which the members of the party residing in the precinct are entitled in the party’s county convention must be elected pursuant to the rules of the state central committee of that party. In presidential election years, the election of delegates may be a part of expressing preferences for candidates for the party’s nomination for President of the United States if the rules of the party permit such conduct. The result of the election must be certified to the county convention of the party by the chair and the secretary of the meeting upon the forms specified in subsection 3.
2. At the precinct meetings, the delegates and alternates to the party’s convention must be elected. If a meeting is not held for a particular precinct at the location specified, that precinct must be without representation at the county convention unless the meeting was scheduled, with proper notice, and no registered voter of the party appeared. In that case, the meeting shall be deemed to have been held and the position of delegate is vacant. If a position of delegate is vacant, it must be filled by the designated alternate, if any. If there is no designated alternate, the vacancy must be filled pursuant to the rules of the party, if the rules of the party so provide, or, if the rules of the party do not so provide, the county central committee shall appoint a delegate from among the qualified members of the party residing in the precinct in which the vacancy occurred, and the secretary of the county central committee shall certify the appointed delegate to the county convention.
3. The county central committee shall prepare and number serially a number of certificate forms equal to the total number of delegates to be elected throughout the county, and deliver the appropriate number to each precinct meeting. Each certificate must be in duplicate. The original must be given to the elected delegate, and the duplicate transmitted to the county central committee.
4. All duplicates must be delivered to the chair of the preliminary credentials committee of the county convention. Every delegate who presents a certificate matching one of the duplicates must be seated without dispute.
5. Each state central committee shall adopt written rules governing, but not limited to, the following procedures:
(a) The selection, rights and duties of committees of a convention;
(b) Challenges to credentials of delegates; and
(c) Majority and minority reports of committees.
(Added to NRS by 1960, 240; A 1967, 842; 1979, 1351; 1981, 27; 1989, 224; 2007, 3161)
Fiasco? That term describes a total failure, correct? Well then, lessee – Registration table shut down friday afternoon before people were off of work, so we went back Saturday morning but the table wasn’t ready, we waited until someone directed that everyone leave the room. Then they let us in and we finally registered.
The meeting started over 30 minutes late because the chair and her people showed up late, then had no idea what they were doing. Then they finally listened to people telling them that there was no flag in the room. More waiting.
Okay, now we start the meeting, first order of business is to seat the ELECTED delegates, something required by our by-laws, state party by-laws and NRS. The chair tried pulling a fast one. She was trying to ram through a vote to seat people who had never attended a caucus, some who didn’t live in the precinct appointed in, all by the chair, not by the Central Committee as required by those pesky by-laws and state laws.
Now maybe some folks feel that this is ok, they probably think the stuff the polling places with non-citizen during the last election was ok too but this USNavy Vietnam vet has a slightly different take on that and I think that most Republicans would agree that the rule of law is paramount, otherwise we are just another banana republic.
So we held firm to the rule. Right up to lunch. Oh, lunch. We paid ten bucks in advance for lunch. Only there wasn’t one. The chair sorta forgot to order one. The local diner in the casino where this fiasco was held did a magnificent job of putting some sack lunches together when he didn’t have any supplies ordered because the chair sorta forgot to call him with the order.
So after lunch, we finally seated the lawfully appointed delegates and then things sailed through just fine. Of course, the chair and her friends had all left in a huff. There were no threats, there were no arguments.
One item of business was the treasurer’s report. We didn’t get one because the treasurer was no where to be found. We’d like to know why we were forced to pay $40 each (plus ten bucks for the almost non-lunch) when the room was free. Only we never did find out where that four grand or so went. The diner owner would like to know where his money is too.
So the fiasco appears to be only in the so-called leadership of the county party, that and some very negative reporting that sounds like some meeting other than the one I was at all day.
As for the silly comment about Ron Paul people? I didn’t see any of them breaking the laws, that was done by the real good Republicans.
A generally excellent account, except it leaves out that crucial moment where Nye County Republican Party Central Committee Chairman Fely Quitevis threatened the legally-elected delegates and legally elected alternates with adjourning the 2012 Nye Country Republican Convention unless we legally-elected delegates stopped objecting to her illegally seating her illegally-appointed and illegally-fleeced “delegates” among the caucus-day elected delegates and alternates.
She might have gotten away with it, too, if the “nut job” writing this comment had not stood up at this point and informed Nye County Republican Party Central Committee Chairman Fely Quitevis that if she adjourned the convention we legally-elected delegates from our precincts would immediately reconvene with the first order of business being the next one mandated by the By Laws: to elect a convention chairman.
That exercise of actual legal authority deriving from the caucus elections apparently stumped Nye County Republican Party Central Committee Chairman Fely Quitevis.
The convention is a joke until you get a new chairman. I attended the one in 2006 in Beatty and it almost didn’t get started because everyone argued on how to start the convention. There was also a segment of Ron Paul followers who wanted the convention
their way. In a quarterly meeting I witnessed a time wasting argument on who was going to ride in the 4th of July float. Everyone is concerned about their own private agenda, and we have a country falling apart around us. Get some new leadership…..or will that be a racist statement??
It seems to me that the reporter that was at the convention was in the Twlight Zone. The only ones being threathen was the Ron Paul people and the Non – Quitevis types. I was there and observed the NCRCC Kuncklehead on several occassions tell the convention people that if they do not finish by 4:00 PM that they would have to come back tomorrow. That was an utter lie. The management stated we could take as long as we needed.
Second, We were suppose to have a treasurers report. She never showed up. Supposely out of the country for an eye operation. OK, I can deal with that BUT she could have authorized another individaul to get the report. This type of secret operation is the Fely Quitevis Standard Operational Procedures. For the last six years she has use this office for her own personal gains thru the Governors office. This happened with the Gibson and now Sandoval. But he is for a big surprise.
Great reporting by Mark Waite and Bill Roberts [NOT!!] Did you guys make any attempt to get the whole story? After reading the story I don’t think so. And I am not sure Fely Quitevis and I were at the same convention. Afraid for her life?? And Fely seems to have taken a page out of the liberal play book, don’t get your way scream raceism! I don’t know what world she lives in, but it’s not this one. While Fely was the chair the convention was total chaos, I thought it was her first time running a meeting. Only to find out she has been the Chair for six years, how is possible someone can be that inept at something they have been doing for that long! Now about appointing delegates, from what I understand of the rules the central committee can appoint delegates only if a precint caucus is announced and no one shows up for the meeting. The central committee may then appoint delegates who lives in that precinct to fill the open delegate spots, this is not what happened. Fely wanted to appoint delegates to ALL open delegate spots. Example, I am from precinct 31 we were allowed 14 delegates, only 12 showed for the convention. We had no alternates, Fely wanted to appoint 2 delgates to fill those 2 open spots, the rules do not support this action. Once a new Chair was elected, the convention ran as smoothly as any meeting with several hundred different people can run. All in all I would say the convention was run in a very democratic fashion, once a new Chair was elected. The fee for the convention was $40.00 per person, as a retired person on a fixed income, the $80.00 for my wife and I was a bit steep. The room rental for the convention as I understand it was $150.00. I don’t understand why the fee was so high, unless it was to make it too expensive for delegates to attend. Thanks for letting me vent about a very poorly written “news article” Mike Reimler delegate precinct 31
NRS 293.137.2: At the precinct meetings, the delegates and alternates to the party’s convention must be elected. If a meeting is not held for a particular precinct at the location specified, that precinct must be without representation at the county convention unless the meeting was scheduled, with proper notice, and no registered voter of the party appeared. In that case, the meeting shall be deemed to have been held and the position of delegate is vacant. If a position of delegate is vacant, it must be filled by the designated alternate, if any.
That is the language that was being argued over. First it says delegates and alternates must be elected. Then it says that if all the steps were taken and no registered voter for the precinct appeared, someone can be appointed to represent them (this is to make sure that no precinct goes without representation). At no time does it say that the elected representation should be watered down with friends/appointees of the chair. I repeat… vacant means that NO REPRESENTATION showed from the precinct, not that there was only a few representatives.
The body of the meeting agreed 100% that the precincts with no representation could have appointees. A prime example was (I believe) precinct 1 where five delegates were seated that were appointed (although the appointing process was still improper).
This is how the “fiasco” actually came about:
The parliamentarian would not rule on the language that I previously listed because it was not part of Robert’s Rules. They said that it was a legal issue because it was an NRS and that a lawyer would have to rule on it. (On a side note, a different 3rd party parliamentarian was appointed before the convention, and this matter was discussed with them. They agreed with us, and Ms. Quitevis had them replaced for the convention.) Since we did not have a lawyer present, and we all wanted to get on with our meeting, Mr. Pat Kerby requested that we take a vote on whether or not to allow the challenged delegates. He asked multiple times, and the chair would not give an answer. Finally, one of her own people, Mr. Lewis Beaver, who was acting as Sergeant of Arms all morning, said that a vote would be fair and requested that we took one, as Mr. Kerby suggested. At that point she agreed.
It was voted that the unchallenged delegates should be seated, and that those that were challenged could attend the convention, but would not have voting rights, since they were not elected per the NRS. Then, the body also asked that the delegates be returned their entry fee to the convention because they did not have the right to vote. Initially, the chair refused. Eventually, we voted on that as well, and we approved the refund. Ms. Quitevis, then made arrangements at the back of the room for the people to get their money back.
Next, we voted on the chair for the convention (Ms. Quitevis was the temporary chair to start the meeting because she is the official chair of the NCRCC). An overwhelming majority stood up for Mr. Andy Alberti. Ms. Quitevis, handed over the meeting to him and left the building (and the convention). All of her officers, committee members, and the challenged delegates did as well.
She did not say anything about “Paul supporters violating state law” (as in the AP article “Ron Paul supporters claim victories in Nevada” (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/01/nv-ron-paul-nevada-1st-ld-writethru/) or threatening her (as in this article) before she walked out. She stuck with the meeting and finally got flustered enough to leave after the appointed delegates were not recognized as voting members and the chair that she wanted to oversee the meeting was not elected.
There were many videos taken of the convention… I myself recorded the whole credentials process (which took until about 2 PM). The chair was never threatened. Any reporter who was there should know this. They should also know that there were still non-”Ron Paulers” there and every vote (minus the state delegate vote) was unanimous after the chair was picked.
Ms. Quitevis tried to stuff the body of delegates wrongfully with her supporters. She tried to keep the money of those delegates that she wrongfully appointed. She was not threatened by anyone. The NCRCC was supposed to provide a Treasurer’s report (as mentioned in previous posts) and did not, which is of some concern since the elected officers of the body skipped town without paying their bills (lunches for everyone, which they were paid for and the room which they collected money for). It is just ridiculous that the reporters who wrote this article didn’t actually try to find out the story and just “reported” what Ms. Quitevis told them.
It’s amazing what you can get away with saying about a group of people without proof that you could never say about an individual. You are implying a crime when you say that she left because some of the delegates were carrying firearms and were threatening her (the same people that always exercise their Second Amendment rights at meetings without issue). I ask that you either verify or withdraw that statement- in addition, you need to specify individuals and treat them as such, not condemn a whole group of people.
It sounds like Fely is playing the race card and the damsel in distress card all in the same hand. What is it with female leaders these days. the former chairperson of the Town board ran off in fear too, claiming she feared for her life! lol. Unbelievable.
Well, after the poor treatment of the Ron Paul supporters and RINO supporting leaning of the local republicans, I hope the entire party goes up in flame. Libertarians and free thinkers and those who embrace the constitution and liberty are not welcome around that bunch of clowns.
I always tell people, I like Ron Paul, its his followers I cant stand.
Case in point.. this situation.
People, no one stripped anyone of a vote, all you had to do was show up in Tonapah.
If I supported a candidate that much, you can bet I would drive that far to cast my vote.
I saw first hand how nasty Ron Paul people were at this convention, and I was a Ron Paul supporter. Fely does have a point.. and its not her playing the race card.