Mob’s mouthpiece, eight others vie in primary election for Vegas mayor

Tim Dahlberg

Tuesday, May 4, 1999 | 3:16 a.m.

When Jan Jones decided in February that eight years of cutting ribbons and helping open casinos was enough, the race to succeed her as mayor of Las Vegas figured to be a mundane affair.

It was, but only until Oscar Goodman decided the title of mayor might look better next to his name than that of mob mouthpiece.

Now Goodman tops a field of nine contenders in Tuesday's primary election, with polls showing he has an outside chance of capturing the majority needed to win the mayor's post outright.

If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the two top vote-getters go to a June 8 general election.

"I don't need this job. I want this job," Goodman said. "There's a big difference."

The criminal defense attorney who got rich defending the likes of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and Meyer Lansky faces veteran City Councilman Arnie Adamsen and developer Mark Fine in what turned into one of the most hotly contested - and certainly most expensive - races for mayor in the city's 94-year history.

Polls leading up to the election showed the 59-year-old Goodman well ahead of Adamsen and Fine, who spent much of the campaign blaming each other for the traffic and growth that plague the booming Las Vegas Valley.

Goodman tried to take the high road, stressing his appeal as a populist candidate who can't be bought and calling on developers to contribute more to help solve the city's infrastructure problems.

Adamsen, 49, a councilman for 12 years, portrayed himself as "Mr. Traffic Signal, Mr. Crossing Guard" in a campaign that focused on his experience at building a consensus at City Hall on major issues.

The Chamber of Commerce backed him, as did most every other sponsoring organization. Among them was the city's police union, which frowned upon Goodman's years of defending criminals arrested in Las Vegas.

"The contrast is experience and the type of experience we have," Adamsen said. "A criminal defense attorney verbally assaults people in court. Someone who has done that for 35 years would find it very difficult to provide consensus and move the city forward."

All three candidates spent more than $500,000 on the primary campaign, or more than one dollar for every resident of the city itself.

Fine spent his money touting his experience in developing the new master-planned communities that have sprouted in recent years on the fringe of the city as an example of what he would do if elected mayor.

Less than half of the 1.2 million residents in the Las Vegas Valley reside within city limits, and the huge megaresorts on the Las Vegas Strip are not part of the city either. The mayor's job, which pays $48,500 a year, carries little more clout than that of a city council member.