Carson Valley man running for governor

A trauma surgeon and Minden restauranteur is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

Foothill resident Fred J. Simon, 68, plans to announce his candidacy at the Douglas County Republican Central Committee in Gardnerville tonight. Simon owns Kristopher’s Ristorante in Minden.

“I’ve spent my entire life helping people as a trauma surgeon,” Simon said. “I’ve had success in my career as a surgeon and as a small businessman and now it’s time to give back to the state of Nevada.”

Simon accused Gov. Steve Sisolak of practicing medicine without a license by prohibiting doctors and pharmacists from the prescribing therapeutic drugs, specifically, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which according to CDC literature are effective low-cost treatments for coronaviruses.

“The governor has no place in restricting our constitutional rights to assembly, free speech and free enterprise even during a pandemic,” he said in his statement.

Simon supports providing parents up to $10,000 a child in vouchers they can use at a school, or even to homeschool their child.

As a physician, Simon said health care costs are the result of diabetes, heart disease, colon and breast cancer.

He proposes establishing 10 regional centers of excellence that focus only on those four diseases, including screening, prevention, early diagnoses and health maintenance.

Simon said as governor he would seek to ban electronic voting machines, with voting only on nonreproducible paper ballots, eliminate mailed ballots and DMV voter registration.

Simon said he favors opening a nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain, which he said could bring in $2 billion a year to the state in revenue.

He said he would seek legislation to make gold, silver and Bitcoin legal tender for all transactions and contracts in the state and establish a Nevada Bullion Depository where Nevadans can safely store gold and silver.

Before he can challenge Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, Simon will have to get through what may be a crowded field of Republicans in the state primary.

Filing for the seat could begin in February.

Simon previously ran for California’s 52^nd Congressional District in 2014. That’s the year after the Douglas County Assessor reports he purchased his Carson Valley home.