Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 4:25 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 [email protected].
WEEKEND EDITION
September 25 - 26, 2004
"I'm the happiest mayor in the universe. It's like playing monopoly with real money. It's like playing Legos with real bricks and mortar and on occasion, you can even help your son."
-- Mayor Oscar Goodman,
Sept. 22, in speech to Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce
TO OSCAR GOODMAN, The Family Plot is not a scandal. It's a joke.
And why not? Since he became mayor, his extended family has been laughing all the way to the bank.
His Honor, a brilliant actor and charismatic comedian, knows what few politicians know: If you can keep them laughing, they won't take it seriously. Trivialize the transgressions and marginalize the attacks.
So his son, Ross, received a redevelopment document in July that the city, citing a state law, tried to keep from the public earlier this month. Cue the laugh track.
So Sonny and Louis (aka mayoral protege Louis Palazzo) are trying to buy up land abutting a soon-to-be-developed city parcel, even suing an 85-year-old woman to lock it up. This is funny stuff.
And so the mayor once coveted The Family Plot for himself and tried to change the law so he could buy it, so his faux chief of staff and de facto family member Stephanie Boixo was involved in the bid committee for the land, so the mayor has told more fantastic stories about this than can be found in Scherezade's collection. Someone call "Saturday Night Live."
What doesn't surprise me is that the hoi polloi don't seem to care, that the great unwashed are happy with the happy mayor as he washes his hands, Pilate-like, from any responsibility for creating an environment open to corruption.
Yes, folks, corruption. Try not to laugh. Whether or not any criminal acts have been committed -- and there are still many questions left unanswered or answered with contradictions -- the behavior of the mayor and his extended family has been criminal.
Let me pose a simple question: If Oscar Goodman were not mayor, do you think his wife's private school would be $50,000 richer, his law partners would be interested in the city-regulated billboard industry, his sons would be hired by city supplicants and Ross Goodman would be investing in a block next to a redevelopment parcel?
If you answered in the affirmative, you have a Swiftian sense of humor, positively Brobdingnagian. And His Honor continues to treat his constituents as if they had Lilliputian-sized brains, unable to see what has happened to City Hall because of his larger-than-life personality.
No Family Plot here, he chuckles. But don't hold your nose, folks -- laugh along with the mayor.
Just last week, my "Face to Face" producer Dana Gentry asked His Honor whether the city's disproportionate treatment of his son created the impression Ross received inside information. The Forced Smiling Mayor told Gentry that his son couldn't have had any "because if he had any inside information he certainly would have discussed something with me and he never did."
Now that is great shtick:
Hey, Dad, guess what I got today?
Inside information on city redevelopment land.
Well, you don't say, son. Is this a great city or what?
Just laughing along with you, mayor.
Like Jackie Gleason with his nonpareil "Honeymooners" supporting cast, Goodman has his Ed Norton in City Manager Doug Selby, who (along with City Attorney Brad Jerbic) has been quick to protect the mayor's interests.
We have also seen laugh-out-loud appearances of The Contradictory Mayor, who has said, for instance, that he didn't know his name was on law firm letterhead his son sent threatening to sue the 85-year-old. He followed up by saying he wanted his son to take advantage of his out-of-state connections. And then the latest version: His name is there because he talks law with Ross every day, although not, apparently, about suing old ladies.
Folks, this is Chaplinesque, slapstick at its finest, especially as poor city staffers fall all over themselves to spin after the latest revelation. Peter Sellers -- eat your heart out.
The mayor truly is a funny guy. Just ask the staffers who have been loyal to him only to later be gutted, publicly and privately, by The Family Goodman. Hilarious. And he and his lawyer pals love to fulminate and threaten, thundering about exacting retribution on all who challenge them. Great stuff. And just as he did during the iPolitix imbroglio, Goodman even has said he believes this is all about his prospective run for governor.
I can just imagine the scheme being hatched: "Let's get his son to invest in downtown land that Oscar once wanted and then sue an 85-year-old woman. That ought to hurt him politically."
Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh.
At least law enforcement is cracking down on more serious violations, such as Controller Kathy Augustine using state workers to help on her campaign and City Councilwoman Janet Moncrief underreporting campaign expenses. Those are misdemeanors compared to The Family Plot.
Come to think of it, looking at all of this, I have to agree with the mayor: What a joke.
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