Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001 | 9:43 a.m.
Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at [email protected]
OSCAR GOODMAN is one of those people who always seems to be enjoying himself -- and I'm talking about sans Beefeater.
When he gushes about being the "happiest mayor," as he did in his State of the City address Tuesday, you believe him. When he can't resist applying a needle to a developer or a colleague or a staffer from the dais, the twinkle in his eye can be seen on the city-run television station, KCLV. And when he departs on one of his rhetorical flights -- plucking superlatives from the sky as if they were stars -- you can see the corners of his mouth turn up.
Goodman is enjoying himself so much, in fact, that it's easy not to take him seriously. But after his speech Tuesday, the question isn't whether Goodman is serious but just how far he can go with his grandiose plans, especially since he does not shy away from challenging conventions or eschewing alliances others make reflexively. In any political system, it's hard to be a maverick and be successful -- especially in small towns masquerading as big cities. But Goodman, nearing the end of his second year on the job, just might be that rare animal -- fueled by an unquenchable enthusiasm that combats both frustration and ennui.
Take the speech. The first little tidbit a wise guy such as me might want to impart is which of the city's myriad consultants penned the State of the City for him. Sig Rogich? Dan Hart? Billy Vassiliadis?
No, the most surprising person of all wrote His Honor's speech -- Goodman. He scrawled it on a yellow tablet and because he apparently is a technomoron, had someone input it into a computer and print it out.
The address was what Goodman is all about -- brimming with optimism, sometimes unrealistically so, and unwilling to succumb to cynicism or criticism. To wit:
* He continues to take on the one group that almost no other serious -- emphasis on serious -- politician does in Las Vegas: the gaming industry. Oh, it was oblique. But who do you think this section referred to:
"Perhaps my only disappointment is with those in the private sector who are the beneficiaries of our quality of life and our efforts to make Las Vegas a world-class place to live, who have not done their fair share to co-partner with us for the well-being of the whole of the community. Without their help we will not be the major league city we should be -- we need to be."
Goodman is furious at the gamers for being closed-minded about a sports team and a sports complex downtown. Should he have been more accommodating of their investments in their own arenas? Maybe. But he was met with the same troglodyte thinking that afflicted Bob Snow when he tried to move in with the Glitter Gulch Gang a few years back.
* Unlike other pols, Goodman has a vision. A real one. Call it Pollyanna. But he believes it. And here it is:
"We had to make downtown a place where people want to live, shop, run businesses and go to school. That task was this council's chance to make a difference. We would have to develop residential opportunities, with retail components, we would have to diversify our economy with ventures which would succeed in a city environment -- such as high-tech, multimedia, bio-medical businesses -- and form alliances with the school district and university system to assure a qualified base of employees who could service smart industry."
* I have no doubt that he got much of the detail stuff from staffers -- Goodman is not a detail guy, you might have noticed -- but he did crow about real accomplishments, especially in the area of downtown redevelopment. More has happened this year downtown than in any previous year. As Goodman put it, "The skyline is changing. Cranes are humming. Steel is in the ground."
The acquisition of the Lehman land. The Tom Hom apartments. High-tech or educational complexes planned for downtown.
None of that would have happened without some talented staff work. But without Goodman turning the screws with his energy and drive, those nuts and bolts would never have been assembled.
Goodman remains a dreamer. Suing the feds over Yucca Mountain will get headlines, but probably not much more. Hoping to use the Regional Planning Coalition to effect change is a nice thought, but perhaps just windmill-tilting. And his attempts to infuse culture into a town built on soulless vice will continue to frustrate him.
But so long as he continues to enjoy himself, so long as he creates an ethos at City Hall that impossible dreams are not so quixotic, he may have the last laugh on the doubters and cynics.
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