Oscar Goodman: The first 365 days as Las Vegas' mayor

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman sidesteps the microphone to directly deliver a special message to the city's veteran employees during an awards ceremony.

Borrowing as he often does from Lou Gehrig, Goodman's voice echoes in the Dula Gymnasium's poor acoustics the way the Iron Man's did that historic day in Yankee Stadium.

"I really believe I'm the luckiest man on the face of this Earth," Goodman tells the employees whose city service ranges from 5 to 35 years. "Being mayor of Las Vegas is the best job in the world."

A year into that job, the phrase comes as easily as it did on the evening he won election.

And since taking the mayor's office June 28, 1999, he has repeated that to thousands of people from Costco shoppers to NBA owners and movie stars.

"I don't know how an incumbent can lose an election," he says walking from City Hall to the awards ceremony at Dula on Thursday.

During the five-minute walk a passing car honks, a city firefighter in a pickup truck lowers his power windows to shake Goodman's hand and another woman says, "Good morning mayor, it's nice to see you."

In public he appears as part celebrity with a dash of stand-up comedian thrown in to endear his audiences.

He begins working the room at the Plaza hotel Thursday afternoon when "Soprano's" actor James Gandolfini arrives to accept a key to the city from Goodman.

"Hey, Jackie," he says to casino owner Jackie Gaughan. "When are you going to give me this hotel?"

When told Julia Roberts won't be joining the ceremony, Goodman quips: "I'm here for Gandolfini. Who needs 'em?"

Yet in the next minute, when he gives Gandolfini a key he claims will open the slot machines downstairs, Goodman produces his Screen Actors Guild card and begs the actor for a guest spot on the popular HBO mob series.

"Come on, I don't make anything as the mayor," he said, his lucrative law practice now a memory. "I can't even afford to tip the valets."

"Part of the reason he's so successful is that he's down to Earth," said Jeanne Corcoran, production coordinator for the Nevada Film Office, after viewing the exchange. "He is very funny, and he breaks down people and barriers with that humor."

Goodman isn't afraid to shoot from the hip and the headline-grabbing statements that result marked his administration's first year from efforts to court an NBA team to the fight against a college sports betting ban and proposed nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain.

But while the first 365 days have had plenty of soundbites, they also have slipped by without the big successes Goodman promises.

"Boy do I have a lot of work to do," Goodman says from the back seat of a Cadillac driven by his staffer, William Cassidy, as they drive by the shuttered Trolley Stop casino downtown. "Would you look at that?"

After 35 years as a criminal defense attorney, most notably for mobsters and celebrities, Goodman entered City Hall last year with a certain naivete and is at times frustrated that he can't re-create the city faster.

"At the end of one year I'm quite certain he's asking himself, 'Have I had an impact?' " said Cassidy, an investigator who made the transition from Goodman's law firm to City Hall with him. "I think he was idealistic, but he went farther, faster than anybody ever has in this office."

If Thursday was indicative of an average day at work, Goodman's energy belies his 60 years.

Just after 7 a.m. he emerges from his home in the Scotch 80s estates near downtown, jumps in his Mercedes and impatiently heads to City Hall after downing black coffee and "59 vitamins" and kissing wife, Carolyn, adieu.

At 7:20 a.m. he begins returning calls that came in to his office overnight.

Yet neither the president of a company building an office tower downtown nor the woman leasing at the stalled Neonopolis project are immediately available.

Instead he begins shuffling through his giant stack of daily mail from around the world, attaching notes on each piece instructing his staff how to respond.

Some get forwarded to more appropriate agencies, others get personal notes. He rejects an invitation to an event in Winnemucca, turning up his nose at the thought of visiting the tiny town.

So is he really eyeing the governor's mansion?

"Right, you know how I would thrive up there," he says. "Carson City. Humph."

For now Goodman's sites are focused on Las Vegas, and particularly, downtown.

After speaking at the service awards, Goodman returns to his office where staff has now arrived and is positioning his various guests for the morning.

He rejects an October speaking engagement that falls on a Monday night, giving his secretary an "as-if" glance indicating Monday Night Football had priority all autumn.

After saying goodbye to two Aramark representatives, Goodman heads into a conference room, where a dot-com company has a serious proposal to develop the Union Pacific parcel downtown.

"Are you real?" he asks the assembled group. "The reason I ask this is that I've been here a year and haven't seen anybody real."

The developer promises a cross between a college campus and old Soho with parks and a high-tech incubator. He tells the mayor to check out his financials.

"Alright, I hope you're real," Goodman says. "I'll have dreams about you until I have nightmares."

Back in his office the Neonopolis nightmare surfaces when Joyce Storm calls with a status report on leasing efforts at the $99 million entertainment center planned downtown but already years behind schedule.

Goodman puts his thumb down during the brief conversation. There is no news.

Minutes later a prominent businessman tells Goodman he wants to bring a car dealership downtown.

"I swear on my children this is the way every day is," he says after what he considers two good meetings. "That's why I'm saying I have to succeed. I'm tossing my line out into the waters with all of the chum. I may have landed two whales today."

Fellow council members stand in awe of Goodman's daily schedule. Councilman Michael Mack says, "I can't keep up with him."

Mayor Pro Tem Michael McDonald told residents last week that Goodman is living up to every promise.

"He's working for you every day," McDonald said during a council meeting.

During his weekly televised press conferences, his twice-a-month live television call-in show and his monthly open-door meeting, Goodman has brought a new era of accessibility to City Hall.

So it wasn't surprising when he bolted away just before noon to have lunch with a third grader who won the honor in an auction at her school. Arriving at Mandalay Bay hotel-casino's Border Grill with a white-suited Cassidy wearing sunglasses and a photographer snapping away, hotel guests began pointing and whispering, "that's the mayor."

Goodman isn't just image, but the image helps draw attention.

"If I have to hit people over the head with it, so be it," he said. "But I don't see the arena or performing arts center as being an amenity anymore. Hopefully our mentality has grown with our population, but we'll always remain inferior to other urban areas unless we get those things."

During his inaugural State of the City address, Goodman pledged that the success of his whole mayoralty will ride on whether he can get a downtown arena as part of his plan to revitalize downtown.

In his first year, Goodman has announced plans for a high-tech business incubator downtown and pledged he would turn the Stewart Avenue post office into a museum with adjoining city park.

Neither effort has the required funding or finalized plans, but Goodman now is focused on the year 2001, when no fewer than eight downtown housing, civic or retail projects are scheduled to open.

"It is going to happen," Goodman said. "If I can't get it done in four years, I might think about another term, but right now, I think I can do it."

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