Different background.
Different commission.
ABOUT MANNY
Husband. Father. Builder. Neighbor.
Manny is a father and a husband first. The county he wants to serve is the same county where his daughter will grow up. That is the entire commitment.
Manny Kess grew up in New York, attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and lost his father while he was there, an experience that shaped how he approaches leadership, responsibility, and resilience.
He survived the 2008 Recession, moved to Las Vegas in 2011, and built The Kess Group from scratch in 2012: restaurants, real estate, travel services, and responsibly farmed food, working with athletes, entertainers, business leaders, and local families. Building those businesses meant living inside budgets, regulation, and land use, the same things this board decides. In December 2025, he declared his candidacy for Clark County Commission, District E.
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He has made fifteen years of payrolls. He has fought permit boards. He has fired people. He has hired people. He has looked someone in the eye and said no when they wanted him to look the other way.
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He is not a career politician.
The Five Stops that brought Manny here.
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A timeline a career politician can't fake.
Each chapter taught a specific lesson about how Clark County actually works.
1997 - The Naval Academy.
1.
Annapolis taught discipline that does not require an audience. The chain of command. The names on the wall of Memorial Hall. The standard you keep when nobody is watching. He lost his father while he was there. That loss shaped everything that came after.​
2008 - The Recession.
2.
Twenty-something during the worst economy in eighty years. The industry he was in collapsed. Most of his peers got out. He stayed long enough to learn what a P&L really means at the bottom of a cycle before the recession took its toll on his family business.
2011 - Vegas.
3.
Manny headed west and moved to Clark County with a fresh start. He had almost no contacts. He had no apartment. He was here a month before landing his first job. The desert was honest about who he was: somebody who had to build it from here.
2012 - The Kess Group.
4.
Formed in 2012 as a hospitality company of one. Just Manny. It grew to more than a dozen team members, and then came the restaurants, real estate, travel services, and responsibly farmed food. Fifteen years of payrolls since. Hospitality teaches you what a county actually feels like, one staff and one permit at a time.
2025 - The Candidate.
5.
Declared in December 2025. Posted his cell number online the same day. Won the Republican primary in June. Now the general election, November 3, 2026. The fifth stop is the one the rest were quietly preparing for.
Where Manny stands.
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The problems he is actually running on, straight from his campaign and grounded in what this board controls. Specific numbers. Specific commitments. No "fight for working families."
Revitalizing Commerce
The county has invested more than $12 million acquiring property in the Commercial Center, and residents are still waiting on results. Manny will push for a step-by-step plan with real timelines. Lighting, cleanliness, safety, parking, and code compliance first. Year one should be a year of visible progress, not another planning cycle.
A published timeline,
not another study
Property Tax and the 3% Cap
Nevada caps the tax bill on an owner-occupied home at three percent a year, but a quiet refinance mistake can reset that to a higher rate. The county is funded largely by these taxes which is why Manny wants the cap protected, the re-filing trap made plain, and homeowners told exactly how to keep the lower rate they expected and are owed.
Protect the 3% cap,
make it easy to claim
Homelessness and public safety
On a single night in 2024, more than 7,900 people were counted homeless in Clark County, over half of them unsheltered. Manny pairs real shelter and stabilization beds and compassionate outreach with consistent enforcement that protects neighborhoods, plus quarterly public reporting by area so that residents can see progress, including the District E hotspots.
Quarterly reporting by area,
District E included
Education and Technology
The County Commission does not run the schools. What the county can do is real: expand digital access, grow tech and skilled-trade jobs through economic development, and strengthen libraries and workforce programs rather than duplicate them. Manny also wants the county itself to use technology to make its own services faster, cheaper, and easier to reach.
Real partnerships and digital access,
not overreach
Human Services
Behind the hospital is a roughly $893 million safety net most people never see: child protection and foster care for about 3,400 kids, eviction and rental help, indigent and burial assistance, in-home senior care, and guardianship for vulnerable adults. Manny's standard: run it by outcomes, protect the vulnerable, and make the help findable, starting with 2-1-1.
A net that catches people,
measured by outcomes
Healthcare
The same seven commissioners you elect are the board of University Medical Center, Nevada's only Level I trauma center, and they appoint members of the public-health district. A serious crash anywhere in Southern Nevada goes to UMC. Manny's standard: protect the hospital's trauma and safety-net mission as a core duty of the seat.
Protect UMC,
the state's only Level I trauma center
Our local economy
The Strip sits in unincorporated county, so this seat helps govern the engine of the whole valley economy, but the part that pays east-valley bills is the off-Strip, neighborhood economy. Manny's focus: mind the local economy first, hold the public money in the stadium deals accountable, and build a backup engine beyond tourism.
Mind the off-Strip economy,
account for every dollar
Roads, transit, and traffic
Most of the valley's roads, the Maryland Parkway transit line running straight through the district, and the pedestrian-safety crisis on its arterials are all county business, and the county runs the Harry Reid airport that anchors the east-valley economy. Manny's focus: roads that move, transit that serves working people, and streets that are safe to cross.
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Roads that move,
streets that are safe to cross
Transparency and accountability
Spending should be tied to measurable outcomes and Manny believes that all county contracts should be reviewed on performance and effectiveness, not relationships. Ethics and disclosure standards that are straightforward and easy to find. Manny has pledged to be commissioner you can actually reach, which is why he lists his actual phone number at 702.277.1072.
Outcomes and performance,
in the open
Fiscally responsible decisions
The commission oversees about $10.1 billion across the county's governmental funds, inside a $12.9 billion all-funds budget. To balance it at the end of 2025, the county moved roughly $56 million in one-time capital-project funds rather than cut current services. Fiscally responsible means spending that money the way a business owner spends his own, and accounting for every dollar of it.
Spend it
like it is your own
Affordability and cost of living
The median home price in Clark County has climbed to nearly $490,000, putting ownership out of reach for working families, seniors, and young professionals. Manny will expand housing supply and cut the delays that drive up construction costs, and measure success by how many homes actually get built and occupied each year.
Measured in homes built and occupied, not promises.
Small Business and Permitting
The county licenses every business and issues the permits the unincorporated valley runs on, so this seat is the front door for small business. Manny has stood in the 6 a.m. permit line himself, fifteen years of payrolls behind him. His first ask is a public dashboard of how long county permits actually take, the targets next to the actuals.
A published permit clock,
targets next to actuals it.
Public Safety
The county helps fund Metro through the More Cops tax and the county budget, and a new police station for the East Valley is on the way. The honest 2024 picture is crime trending down. Manny's standard is operational: fund what actually works, hold every safety contract to results, and keep the new station on schedule.
Fund what works,
and hold it to results.
Water Shortage
The valley drinks from a shrinking Colorado River, and the board that steers Nevada's response is the same county commission you elect. Southern Nevada is the river's conservation leader, cutting per-person use 58 percent since 2002. Manny's standard: defend what works, keep rates fair, and put residents before the resorts when the supply tightens.
Residents before the resorts
when supply tightens.
Built, not borrowed.
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Not a resume. A record. More than two decades building and leading businesses,
fifteen of them right here in Nevada.
20+
Years building businesses
More than two decades in regulated, competitive fields.
15
Years building in Nevada
He chose Clark County and built here.
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4
Industries he has operated in
Restaurants, real estate, travel, and consumer ventures.
