Columnist Jon Ralston: Mayor’s popularity trumps ethics

Friday, May 14, 2004 | 5:40 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

May 15 - 16, 2004

And so it ends as it should have, Mayor Oscar Goodman's painful descent from Olympus to Earth, with the inevitable finding that he broke the law when he used his position to help his son.

This was never, as Ethics Commission Chairman Rick Hsu put it, "the crime of the century." But neither was it the niggling charge that his panting sycophants -- I refer not to the city staff members who the mayor induced to fawn over him during the hearing but his "peeps," as he calls his adoring masses -- insisted it was.

This story was about hubris unchained being shackled (albeit momentarily), about The Happy Mayor being revealed as The Nasty Mayor and about city staffers being treated as servants to the master of the 10th floor. What this story was never about was what the mayor said it was about -- his love for his son (well, I hope he does), his unassailable popularity (still in the stratosphere I have no doubt) and some paranoid conspiracy Goodman and his errand boy, Councilman Michael Mack, advanced that the charges were trumped up by operatives who wanted to stop him from running for governor (oh, please, please run, mayor).

No one seriously thinks this will change Goodman's mores or the way he does business. If you are not part of the Family Goodman -- and that includes his surrogate daughter and self-appointed chief of staff, Stephanie Boixo, and Mack, his surrogate son -- you either bend to his will, or he will not hesitate to squash you -- and viciously.

Many who love him will crow that Goodman got off scot-free; those who don't will rail that the panel is toothless for failing to mete out a penalty. But I have always believed ethics hearings were not about the punishment the commission can inflict but that they provide an echo chamber for facts mostly vetted in the media. Any punishment should come from voters.

During a proceeding where ethics became synecdoche for the mayor's unseemly behavior and a city where they make up the rules as they go along, the issues where no violations were found (the city's gin, magazine and car deals) still were eye-opening. This, and the iPolitix violations, should not be forgotten:

"Now that I know what the rules are, I can sleep better at night," the mayor said after the decision, showing he also is tone-deaf to the concept of irony.

Why did Goodman do it? Because just in case the commission wanted to hold someone responsible for the use of city resources to promote the mayor, Goodman and Boixo served up Sanchez and Riggleman.

Yes, the buck at City Hall stops with the mayor, if the buck can help inflate his ego or aid anyone in the family. But when problems arise, the buck stops at the underlings, many of whom are obsequious right up until Goodman decides they are no longer useful.

I don't expect most people will care that Goodman was found, unanimously, to have abused his office, or that the rules of conduct at City Hall, unlike mayoral hot air, do not rise to the 10th Floor. Goodman, ever charismatic, ebullient and humorous, will remain, happily, super-popular.

And isn't that what is important?