John Katsilometes notes that a goodbye missive, especially when sent by the county, is not always priceless

Thursday, March 1, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

It was quite a Hallmark moment.

The going-away letter drafted by outgoing County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, which was postmarked Feb. 22 and written on Clark County letterhead, cost $20,525.20 to deliver and was sent to 48,950 addresses in District D. Those figures were provided by county spokesman Dan Kulin, who said such correspondence is not rare among commissioners - especially in Atkinson Gates' case, as she has averaged one community outreach letter per year in her 14 years on the commission. Kulin also said that funding for the letter came from the county's general fund. (Sun columnist Jon Ralston has posted the letter in its entirety on his blog at vegaspundit.typepad.com.)

Atkinson Gates, who has cited family considerations as the reason she is departing the commission, leaves her post Friday and will be replaced Tuesday by former Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly.

NoteMart

Flush with clubs: The opening date for the 500-seat Canyon Club at Four Queens, previously reported as March 15, has been pushed back by at least two weeks because it has taken longer than expected for the club to obtain the proper operating permits (an all-too-common problem for new concert venues and nightclubs in Las Vegas). Meanwhile at the Stratosphere, the multithemed, 26,000-square-foot Polly Esther's has its soft opening on March 15, and on March 16 celebrates its grand opening with the woman dubbed "The Original Pop Princess," Deborah Gibson (who is now 36 and wow are we getting old) ...

Before his media-night performance Tuesday at the Las Vegas Hilton's Shimmer Cabaret, Joe Piscopo said he was disappointed his former "Saturday Night Live" cast mate Eddie Murphy did not win the best supporting actor Oscar at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony (Alan Arkin received the nod). Piscopo was to take the stage soon after the award was announced, and had hoped to tell the audience of Murphy's triumph just before introducing a classic clip of him and Murphy impersonating Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder singing a politically incorrect version of "Ebony and Ivory." "Eddie reminds me a lot of Sinatra in that he's loaded with talent, but people take shots at him. I was really pulling for him to win," Piscopo said ...

Vegas moment: On Tuesday afternoon Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman greeted visitors to his "How to Make a Martini" class, sponsored by the Community College of Southern Nevada and held at its Summerlin High Tech Center next to Palo Verde High School, with his poker chip-styled business cards. The black chips are stamped with a Goodman caricature on one side and his contact info on the other. All 32 students who took part in the 1 1/2-hour noncredit course were given commemorative mayoral bobblehead dolls (there are a dozen different Goodman models), and on hand to record the event was a bemused New York Times San Francisco bureau chief Jesse McKinley ...

Well-suited digs: While the mayor swilled, CCSN President Richard Carpenter said that he spends most of his time in Las Vegas in transit, driving from one CCSN campus to another. "I am in my car, mostly. I have this nice office (he is stationed at the CCSN Charleston campus) but I don't need it. Just give me a closet." When it was noted that, in lieu of office furniture, he could request a Bose sound system for his car, Carpenter laughed and said, "Sounds fine to me." ...

Austin Miller has risen to network television prominence out of the ill-fated Vegas version of "Hairspray," which closed in June after just 15 weeks at the Luxor. Miller, who played Link, is one of six finalists for a new Danny Zuco on NBC's "Grease: You're the One That I Want" (the competition show to select a Danny and Sandy for the new Broadway version of "Grease" airs Sundays at 8 p.m.) ...

Wherever you go: Reader reports the vanity plate THEREUR on a Jeep Wrangler.