Mayor won’t reveal answer to ethics charge

Sito Negron

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is refusing to release copies of his response to an ethics complaint filed against him for his role in a party meant to promote his son's and Councilman Michael Mack's business.

The response, filed last week, is confidential unless Goodman chooses to release it.

On Thursday he said he would not because he didn't want the Las Vegas Sun or "the people associated with it, particularly one individual ... to pick it apart."

Goodman did not identify the person, but he has previously said that he wished a Sun columnist would drop dead.

He also discussed comments he made earlier this week while on KOMP 92.3-FM, in which he referred to both the ethics complaint and mayoral term limits.

Goodman said there was speculation that the reason the ethics complaint against him was being covered the way it had been was because "folks who are afraid of my running for governor may want me to be muddied up."

When asked who that might be, Goodman said, "I don't know. I just hear them (the rumors), I don't spread them."

Robert Rose, a Las Vegas retiree, filed the complaint against Goodman for handing out invitations to a January promotional party for iPolitix that took place in Washington, D.C., in the same hotel where Goodman was attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting.

The invitations carried Goodman's mayoral title, and Goodman said all he did was greet attendees and invite them to check out the iPolitix product -- a media analysis tool.