John Katsilometes catches up with the newest county commissioner as he preps for a ‘different lay of the land’

Tuesday, March 6, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

Lawrence Weekly brings a lot of baggage to the County Commission. But we mean that only literally.

"I'm up to my neck in boxes. Right now I am in the parking lot, hauling boxes," Weekly said during a phone interview Monday afternoon. He is to be sworn in today as Clark County's newest commissioner, replacing Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who has retired after serving 14 years in District D.

"I have stuff from 1995," he said. "I have so much stuff, my office looks like 'Sanford & Son.' I took two boxes over to a senior center and said, 'Take these. You can have whatever you want.' "

As he noted, Weekly has been involved in Las Vegas politics since 1995, when he served in the Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department. He was elected to the Las Vegas City Council in 2000, but calls his new post, for which he was appointed by Gov. Jim Gibbons, "a whole different lay of the land. I'm an infant trying to learn how to walk. I'm not going to come in and run my mouth, be a showoff or anything like that. I'm not trying to change the world right away, but I am a person who has a familiarity with local government."

Weekly praised all commissioners, and said he has particular respect for Bruce Woodbury. "He's a guy I have watched for a long time and who I have the utmost respect for. He's the epitome of what a public servant should be."

Weekly also recalled the message of his college alma mater, Grambling State University in Louisiana. "They said it's a place where everybody is somebody, and that's when I started to feel like I was somebody, that I could be anything I wanted to be in my life."

NoteMart

Victims - I mean, passengers - booked on Southwest Airlines flights out of Las Vegas on Feb. 19-20, the days following NBA All-Star weekend, have received a letter of apology from Southwest Senior Manager of Proactive Service Communications Fred Taylor Jr. (This is to indicate there might be an associate, or junior, manager of proactive customer service communications for Southwest.)

The single-page missive apologizes for the "abnormal experience" of the more than two-hour delays for Southwest flights leaving McCarran International Airport on those dates. "We want you to know that we were prepared to handle our normal volume of customers; however there were several unique factors that contributed to the disruption of our customers' ability to check in as planned," Taylor said. He also explained that traffic gridlock created by an uncommonly high number of visitors simultaneously leaving Las Vegas was the primary reason for the delays. ...

Here's to us!: On Monday The New York Times ran its story on Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's "How to Make a Martini" class, held last week at the Community College of Southern Nevada's Summerlin High Tech Center. The story, which appeared on page A17, features a photo of a beaming Goodman standing at the podium, clutching a plastic cup of martini, with three bottles of Bombay Sapphire in the foreground. "I do think this country needs a president who drinks," Goodman informs readers in the Big Apple. The headline, "In Las Vegas, the Drink Makes the Mayor," seems to be missing a word. Goofy? ...

Q shot: It didn't work here, but on Saturday "Avenue Q" celebrated its 1,500th performance at the Golden Theatre in New York. The musical opened on Broadway in July 2003. ...

Spam-brosia: The latest attempt to find an audience for wit at Wynn Las Vegas, "Monty Python's Spamalot," opens for previews Thursday. As of Monday afternoon scant few tickets remained on the floor, but several of the mezzanine seats (at just $51.75 a shot) were still available. Ticket brokers are reminding prospective buyers that John O'Hurley is the show's lead, something I think a person buying tickets would already know. ...

Tale of woe update: Vegas vocalist and, suddenly, column friend Kelly Sheehan has found her car. On Sunday, I reported Sheehan's vanity plate (IGOTSOL), and the fact that the car carrying the plate, a yellow Honda Del Sol, was stolen Thursday night. The car was recovered and toted to a Quality Towing yard, where Sheehan was reunited with the vehicle on Monday. Salvaged were the plate, the tires, a trunk full of St. Patrick's Day decorations and a stack of CDs (including "Jimmy Buffet Live From Vegas") the thieves found undesirable. But the seats were missing. ...

Dog fancier, or a person from Denmark, or both: Friend in the field reports the plate GR8DNE, on a black Bentley.