Columnist Jeff German: Clowning around at City Hall

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Please help me welcome the Strongman and the Tattoo Lady to the biggest carnival in town -- City Hall.

You know the history of this long-running sideshow, "All About Oscar."

Since getting elected mayor in 1999, Oscar Goodman has commissioned bobblehead dolls and casino chips bearing his likeness, endorsed a well-known brand of gin, played a bit-part on a popular network drama, hosted martini parties for his constituents and pushed for a taxpayer-financed mob museum that would highlight his career as a mob lawyer.

Goodman also has promoted a book on his life, and recently he has been weighing offers for a reality television series that would exploit the office of mayor.

If he could find the authority to do it, he'd put his face on the city's seal.

This week, believe it or not, Goodman outdid himself, leaving no doubt that he is the undisputed Master of the Midway in Las Vegas.

He selected his personal trainer, Frank Butterfield (the Strongman), as his new chief of staff and gave the key to the city to a woman who has a fetish for covering her body with tattoos that have won the approval of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The key was offered to Anne Rose (the Tattoo Lady) on the condition that she add a tattoo of Goodman to the host of Las Vegas icons, including Elvis Presley and Vegas Vic, carved on her body.

I don't know why Goodman even needs a chief of staff. He only has three low-level aides to oversee. And unlike most big-city mayors, Goodman has very little authority of his own at City Hall. That's because we have a strong council form of government, where the power is shared by seven council members, including the mayor.

Still, Butterfield, a fitness expert who helped Goodman lose 40 pounds over the last two years, actually has management experience, having once served as executive director of the Las Vegas Athletic Clubs. He's probably more qualified for the job than Goodman's two previous chiefs of staff, William Cassidy, a private investigator by trade, and Stephanie Boixo, remembered most at City Hall as the mayor's future daughter-in-law.

"Management experience isn't encessary for that job," says Cassidy, who's now living in Southern California, far away from Goodman's inner circle. "You need patience and skin as thick as a rhinoceros."

You also need, dare I say it, babysitting experience, which Butterfield apparently has, as the man who supposedly steered the hard-drinking mayor toward a healthier lifestyle.

If you're Goodman's chief of staff, your most important task is telling the mayor when to stop drinking and shut his mouth at public events. The idea is to keep the number of embarrassing sound bites on the evening news to a minimum.

Working for Goodman means not having to worry about the homeless, rising crime rates, pollution, uncontrolled growth and traffic gridlock.

Just keep feeding the mayor's ego.

That's what being mayor of Las Vegas means to Oscar Goodman -- in this carnival we call City Hall.