Ethics complaint against Goodman is revived

Sito Negron

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004 | 8:40 a.m.

The ethics complaint against Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman was revived Tuesday by Robert Rose, whose first attempt was declined because of a technicality and a lack of original source material.

The technicality was that Rose used an out-of-date complaint sheet. The lack of original source material meant that Rose initially had only media accounts upon which to base his complaint, which according to rules established less than a year ago must be derived from more than just news reports.

Since last week's attempt at filing a complaint, Las Vegans have come forward to give Rose a copy of Goodman's news conference from last week, in which he discussed the party for his son's business that led to the complaint.

The party took place in Washington at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting during the third week of January. Goodman said while there he handed out invitations -- which carried his title as mayor -- to a cocktail party that was meant as a promotion for Ipolitix, a company owned partly by Ross Goodman and Councilman Michael Mack.

Goodman repeated Tuesday his assertion that he did nothing wrong, and was only acting as a concerned father trying to help his son.

"My position has not changed. In my heart I know I did nothing wrong," Goodman said.

Rose said Goodman clearly broke ethics rules, and it's important to hold government leaders accountable.

"A lot of people ask me, why do I do this? I don't know. But when I see something like this, it's obvious to me the man has not read those laws, and if he has, he's ignoring them," Rose said.

His complaint quotes state laws saying that government officials cannot use their position "to secure unwarranted privileges" for themselves or others for whom they have a "commitment in a private capacity."

Those people could be members of the household or relatives, the law says.