Goodman details holdings

Erin Neff

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 12:05 p.m.

After stumping for broader financial disclosure requirements of candidates as he ran for mayor, Oscar Goodman took his own advice to heart Wednesday by releasing additional information about his real estate holdings.

The addendum to the report he originally filed March 15 includes detailed lists of his partners and the exact location of each property -- information that is not required by law.

"I bent over backwards to be as open as I could," Goodman said this morning during the first of what will be weekly briefings with the press.

The amended filing statement, which is posted on the city's website, lists as investment partners: developer Mark Fine, former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, boxing promoter Bob Arum and John Spilotro, nephew of Goodman's former client, Tony Spilotro.

Other investors listed on 17 different real estate holdings are Goodman's law partners, David Chesnoff and Eckley M. Keach, Imperial Palace owner Ralph Engelstad, Paula Brown -- who just lost her bid for re-election to the North Las Vegas City Council -- and her husband, James Brown.

The city's Ethics Review Board will meet this afternoon to discuss, among other issues, the call for greater specificity in financial disclosure requirements. Deputy City Attorney Larry Bettis said the board likely will just talk about the issue, and is not expected to make any recommendations today.

The state's financial disclosure form requires candidates for political office to disclose a listing of real property, with the exception of their personal residence, in Nevada or an adjacent state.

City Clerk Barbara Jo "Roni" Ronemus said it has been the city's practice to use the information filed by candidates on March 15 to satisfy the March 31 state requirement for financial disclosures by public officials.

If a public official is not up for election in a given year, his or her filing from the past election year is used, Ronemus said. Public officials are responsible for amending such information each time a change occurs, she added.

Goodman owns property in Las Vegas, Henderson, Clark County, North Las Vegas, Coronado, Calif., and Iron County, Utah.

Prior to the election, Goodman said the requirements were "inadequate." During a televised debate just days before the election he vowed to disclose all of his partners after the election, if he won.

The information filed in March, for example, lists only a general description of the property like: APEX Nevada (own 4 percent) unimproved land.

The amended information lists as partners Apex Industrial Park, Inc. and lists 15 limited partners by name or estate name.

The filing also includes a new listing. Goodman was a 3.33 percent owner of Tycanna Associates in March 1997 which has since become a limited partner in Winnemucca Associates Limited Partnership. That group owns 337 acres of unimproved land in Winnemucca.

Goodman said this morning he listed that information "in an abundance of caution," and said he hadn't even learned of the sale to Winnemucca Associates Limited Partnership until recently.

"I got into that venture in 1967," Goodman said. "At this point in time I don't even know where Winnemucca is. I'm concerned about Las Vegas."

The filing also amends two previously reported holdings to record a May 17 exchange between Goodman and Keach.

A 10-acre site at Patrick Lane and Hualapai Way and a 5-acre site at Sunset Road and Grand Canyon Drive were transferred to Keach for 41 percent interest in Carp Elgin Exit, Inc. That corporation owns 19 percent of 133 acres of unimproved land.