Friday, April 29, 2005 | 5:17 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
April 30 - May 1, 2005
Steve Wynn opens a revolutionary resort. Tony "The Ant" Spilotro is in the news. An insider beats an outsider for a key post after a faux search. The state's tax policy has the coherence of Jello. Allegations of corruption plague local government. And, of course, Yucca Mountain is still dead.
During a week in which the local headlines could just as well have been from the '70s or '80s, as the present reached to the past and heralded the future, the ever-present duality of Las Vegas raised the question: Where have we been and where are we going?
Five years after the king was declared dead, and 16 years after his transcendent property's death was greatly exaggerated even before The Mirage opened, Wynn reveled this week in the cries of "Long live the king!" But is Wynn Las Vegas the beginning of a new era of Strip creativity and elegance, or the exclamatory endpoint of evolution on Las Vegas Boulevard South?
Las Vegas has changed in the last quarter-century, but by how much? The mob doesn't run the town but a mob lawyer does, with the same credo his LCN cronies lived by: The family is paramount. When a bunch of folks he wouldn't have hesitated defending in his prime were arrested last week for whacking his most celebrated client, Oscar Goodman, mob mouthpiece turned city boss, wistfully wished for Spilotro, who made life miserable for so many, to rest in peace. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. But will we get fooled again?
The county and state have not metamorphosed much, either, it would seem. TV mogul Jim Rogers was selected university chancellor after a sham search that mirrored so many we have seen. The Gang of 63, which has raised taxes haphazardly for decades, debated last week about how much to spend and how much to give back, with little regard to long-term policy. And on the eve of this week's Las Vegas-linked corruption trial beginning in San Diego, a quarter-century after a federal sting operation stung valley elected officials, the Clark County Commission visited the sins of the son (Mike Galardi) on the father (Jack Galardi). As it appears incest remains de rigueur in the world of state and local government, can we really say that the bed they are in has changed much?
But this is more than a discussion of "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." It is about how Las Vegas may be the most protean city in the country with some of the most static features: The same kinds of people run the Strip, the same kinds of thugs run the city, the same kinds of unethical folks make their way into government at all levels.
As some TV folks needed oxygen tanks to refresh them after their breathless fawning over Wynn's signature edifice, few have taken stock of the significance of the Strip's newest resort. No one has ever become wealthy betting against Wynn, but what if he is wrong?
The Mirage begat Mandalay Bay and Bellagio and The Venetian (don't tell Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson, who believes he has tutored Wynn and helped spawn Wynn Las Vegas). But what if the Strip line ends here, what if an Encore is not called for, what if the megamergers mean less and not more?
I am no Chicken Little, but someone has to ask when the sky's limit is reached. Wynn, despite squawking from the nattering nabobs, for years has crowed that what happens in California and Biloxi and Macau won't stay there -- that other gaming jurisdictions simply create more players for Las Vegas. So far he has been right, just as he once was when he made the cynics look foolish in 1989 with The Mirage. Let's hope his prescience remains present as the city remains just one domestic terrorist attack away from economic Armageddon.
If the Strip has been the subject of greatly exaggerated death rumors, the last rites have been given for downtown many times. But a confluence of economic factors catalyzed by the force of Goodman's personality has revitalized those hopes, especially with those 61 acres that could blossom into the proverbial city within a city, a real downtown for a city that has never had one.
The mayor perfectly embodies the city's duality, a schizophrenic town craving class but ruled by crass. On the same day that Goodman nervously but professionally answered softballs tossed by "Today Show" host Matt Lauer, His Honor was scheduled to pant after a Playboy bunny in her birthday suit as a cameraman for a day. His popularity here will never be in doubt, but can he continue to please the masses with his tasteless jokes and behavior while appealing to high-class entrepreneurs who could change the face of Las Vegas?
Meanwhile, the faces that populate state and local government change some, but the stories don't. Local government officials took payoffs 25 years ago and some are accused of doing the same now, with wiretaps and indictments providing a window into a sleaziness that should embarrass even Sin City.
The state is no different. Juice rules, whether it is in regents choosing a chancellor, governors making appointments or lawmakers selecting where money should be spent. And in arguing about minutiae and helping their friends, the elected officials are wasting your time and your money.
Sooner or later, the duality will dissolve and the road not taken will be clear. Wynn Las Vegas may usher in a new era of Strip productivity, Goodman may reanimate a moribund downtown and ethics may return to Nevada government after a long holiday. And maybe, just maybe, Yucca Mountain really will be dead.
Anyone want to take that four-way parlay?
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