Wednesday, May 26, 1999 | 11:39 a.m.
Although a recent poll has Oscar Goodman practically elected the next mayor of Las Vegas, Arnie Adamsen did his best in a televised debate to let voters know he hasn't given up.
"The only poll that we really need to concentrate on is June 8 and that is when citizens go to the poll and make their selection as to who's going to represent a more positive image for the city of Las Vegas," Adamsen said during a debate on cable channel Las Vegas 1 televised Tuesday night.
"We're going to do a huge grass-roots movement between now and Election Day, so I feel again, the election is not over until it's over, as the infamous Yogi Berra used to say," Adamsen said.
A Mirage Resorts Inc. poll shows Goodman ahead by 35 points with just two weeks remaining.
"You know it ain't over, with all respect once again to fat and ladies, until the fat lady sings," Goodman said, drawing laughs from the stage hands and crew at Channel 8's studios. "I have experts around me who put some faith in the polls. I have faith in the people."
When asked if Goodman's past clients -- many of them notorious mobsters -- pose an image problem for Las Vegas, as suggested by handbillers outside the Channel 8 studios where the debate was taped -- Adamsen answered, "There are no campaign workers of mine out front passing out that literature. That is another committee that is separate from my campaign."
Adamsen's wife, Pat, however, and several other campaign volunteers were among those cheering "Arnie" and handing out a list of 10 reasons voters should vote against Goodman.
Goodman said the clients he has represented over the years will not hurt tourism or business investment in the city.
"Who could be a better guarantor of whether or not I am in the best interest of Las Vegas than the geniuses who developed the Las Vegas Strip?" Goodman said. "The people who have millions of dollars invested of their own money and on Wall Street, they're behind me.
"They're the ones who are at risk," he added, citing financial support and backing from Mirage Resorts, Circus Circus and others. "They have taken the position that Oscar Goodman will be a great mayor."
The candidates' next financial disclosure forms are due June 1. Goodman hinted his would be filled with gaming support.
Although the city limits do not contain the megaresorts of the Strip, both candidates were asked how they would treat the growing labor dispute at Sheldon Adelson's Venetian hotel-casino.
Mayor Jan Laverty Jones had been contacted by the mayor of Venice, Italy, to intervene in the dispute between Adelson and the Culinary Union.
"Would you get involved in labor disputes?" Goodman was asked specifically after he sought clarification of the question.
"Not because the mayor of Venice asked me to, that's for darn sure," Goodman said.
Both candidates said that as mayor they would help negotiate the dispute.
In response to one question, Adamsen mentioned a "freeze on the property taxes" but failed to point out he voted just last week to increase property taxes by 2 percent, or an average $4.69 per resident.
Goodman seized on that during his last response to the question on taxes by saying the City Council's vote to raise taxes makes it tougher to achieve equity with the county, whose residents pay roughly $81 less on a $100,000 home than do their city counterparts.
"Unfortunately they didn't wait for me, because I would have voted against it," Goodman said.
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