LOOKING IN ON: CITY HALL

By Marshall Allen

Monday, Aug. 14, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.

"Back Seat Beth" is either shamelessly seeking attention or a sincere advocate for the homeless.

It all depends on who's telling her story.

To Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Beth Monk, 24, aka Back Seat Beth, is trying to use homelessness as a publicity stunt. Monk, an on-air personality for classic rock station KKLZ, on Aug. 31 became the first person cited under a new ordinance that bans feeding the homeless in city parks.

"I never heard of her but I heard about her," Goodman said of Monk. "I know she's been trying to use this very serious problem as a publicity stunt. I'm certainly not going to help her make a name for herself."

Monk's previous on-air antics have earned her a reputation - though it's not for social advocacy. As Back Seat Beth she performs outlandish stunts on the Kahuna and Company morning show. One time she mud-wrestled another scantily clad woman. Another stunt featured Monk lying on her stomach, wearing tight shorts with the words "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" on the rump (a reference to a raucous country song). Listeners climbed a ladder and dropped raw eggs onto her rear end.

Based on these events, it would seem standing up for the oppressed is not Monk's forte.

But Monk continues to thrust herself into the debate. Thursday, she and KKLZ piggybacked on a rally at City Hall organized by the advocacy group Food Not Bombs. They almost didn't make it because deejays originally announced the protest would take place at the Clark County Government Center. They didn't realize it was a city law, and has nothing to do with the county.

Monk found the right place and the KKLZ tent was in the plaza, drawing protesters with free bumper stickers and T-shirts. Microphone in hand, she earnestly interviewed protestors and led war cries with about 50 people.

She says she can understand how someone might question her motives, but she has alter egos.

"I have a serious side, an intelligent side, and this is the side I'm pitching now," Monk said.

Monk said she attended San Francisco State University on a full-ride academic scholarship and earned a degree in broadcast journalism. Her goal is to become a television news reporter, she said, and the gig at KKLZ is merely a means to an end. Her youth makes it impossible to get respect in the television news world, she said.

Monk said she has spent years volunteering for organizations such as the American Red Cross and feeding the homeless at soup kitchens. Her concern for their plight is rooted in her own experience growing up, she said.

Her father left the family when she was young. and her mother had to work three jobs to support two children. They were never homeless, but they scraped by, Monk said.

Goodman doesn't have a right to criticize people who want to help the homeless until he has done some volunteering in the community himself, Monk said.

Goodman, responding to Monk's critique, noted in an interview that he went from making millions of dollars a year as an attorney to earning about $50,000 annually as mayor.

"That's public service," the mayor said. "I'm constantly out in the community trying to make it a better place - not as a person who loves publicity, but as a person who loves Las Vegas. So tell her to shut her mouth."

The recent terrorist plot to blow up planes headed to the United States from England won't do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of Las Vegas-bound tourists.

That's the perspective of Goodman, the self-proclaimed "Happiest Mayor in the World." The walls of the mayor's conference room at City Hall are cheerily decorated with more than 20 portraits of Goodman - caricatures, oil paintings, photos and sculptured likenesses of the mayor. On Thursday they framed a press conference that had a decidedly somber tone.

Representatives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department were sharing what they knew about the foiled terrorist plot, a discovery causing travel delays and heightened levels of security alert throughout the country.

The law enforcement agents emphasized that terrorism isn't going away, and that residents need to take sensible precautions. It was a message that could put a damper on Las Vegas, where the economy is dependent on a veneer of fantasy, happiness and pleasure that should make people forget things like terrorism.

Goodman, though, didn't see it that way. Problems such as terrorism give tourism a boost, he said.

"You want to get away from a lot of that crap, and you want to come here just to experience the fun times," Goodman said. "I think it probably has a positive effect rather than a negative effect. You want to get away from all that pressure of the world as it is. It is a fantasy land here."