Former Metro police captain enters Las Vegas council race

A retired Las Vegas law enforcement official, who served nearly three decades on the force and most recently led a police department in California, plans to run for the open city council seat in Ward 4.

Robert Plummer, a former Metropolitan Police Department captain, is seeking to replace term-limited Las Vegas Councilman Stavros Anthony, saying he felt compelled to get involved after returning to the city in January to be close to family. (Anthony, too, retired from Metro as a captain before he won a council seat.)

Plummer, 53, served as the police chief in Napa, California, for less than three years following a 28-year career with Metro, where he worked in the homicide division and co-created the Bolden Little League a few years ago in the Historic Westside.

The youth baseball organization was launched as a means to reduce crime and build community engagement in the area, he said in an interview on Tuesday. Parents are involved and children participate for free. Little League had been dormant for seven years in the neighborhood before it was revived in 2017 with local business owner Mario Berlanga Jr.

“By just reaching out to the community and listening to them, and listening to what they want, and being able to respond and give that to them, it helps with community pride,” he said.

“I think that same mindset can be brought over to Ward 4,” he added.

Plummer, who moved to the city when he was a child, will be a new resident of the ward as a result of city redistricting. He has always lived in Ward 6, he noted, which is also in northwest Las Vegas. But he said that voters should not worry about his grasp on issues facing Ward 4 because he believes the two districts are similar and he also had served as a Metro lieutenant in Ward 4.

Not looking to follow California

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Plummer said that public safety is a core issue to his candidacy.

The Sun City Summerlin neighborhood, located in the district he is running to represent, has seen a rise in burglaries this year. To curb the problem, Plummer suggested increased patrols, working with neighborhood watch programs and educating residents on how to be less vulnerable to criminals, among other tactics.

His platform is also focused on improving city parks and roads and using the visibility of the council office to advocate for students. He is a proponent of school choice.

Plummer, a political rookie, said he learned about the inner workings of municipal government during his stint as Napa’s police chief, where he also grew leery of California’s political climate and the response by elected officials in the state to a range of issues, including homelessness and an affordable housing crisis.

“I don’t think that they were addressed how they should have been,” he said.

In particular, Plummer said those issues seemed to lack a real plan or were not prioritized.

In Las Vegas, homelessness remains a pervasive issue. While Plummer called the city’s open-air Courtyard Homeless Resource Center a good start, he said the city needs to join forces with Clark County, Metro, nonprofits and faith-based groups on an improved diversion program.

The candidate filing period for non-judicial races in 2022 begins March 7. The primary election is June 14.

Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.