Goodman was good for Las Vegas despite unfinished business

Nobody is better at selling the good news and ignoring the bad than Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the city’s best pitchman. He proved that once again at his final State of the City speech Tuesday.

In 2000, he outlined four goals: a sports arena, a performing arts center, a new park adjacent to City Hall and a monorail-type system connecting downtown to the Strip. Later, he added attracting a major medical center downtown to his wish list.

I was a Doubting Thomasina about his ambitious vision.

Yet today, there is a major medical center already open — the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, the site of Goodman’s 11th and final city update.

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is nearly finished. The new park was built but immediately became a haven for the homeless. The sports arena has yet to become a reality, and the transportation system probably won’t.

However, Goodman is still working on the arena and an accompanying professional sports team.

Much of downtown is visibly better off today than it was when Goodman was first elected in 1999, and his salesmanship deserves credit.

The jazzy seven-minute video introducing his 40-minute speech showed Goodman and the other City Council members cutting ribbons and pitching dirt at groundbreakings.

Like a salesman, Goodman told a compelling story about his three terms in office, mentioning only his successes and avoiding his failures.

He started with the 61-acre site now called Symphony Park, which housed one building when he was elected — the Clark County Government Center. Since then, it’s been joined by a successful outlet mall, the World Market Center, the IRS building, the Ruvo center and now the Smith center.

Still to come is the relocated Lied Children’s Discovery Museum. Nearby, the new City Hall is being built, which makes room for Zappo’s to move into the old City Hall.

Elsewhere downtown, East Fremont is developing commercially, and various condo projects have been built, even if some remain mostly vacant because of the economic downturn. The Mob Museum is under way.

“It took 13 years for us to become an overnight success,” Goodman said.

His surprise announcement this year was that a high school for exceptional students will be located at Symphony Park and the Lady Luck will be restructured to include a Doubletree Hotel.

Goodman’s success has been in the area of physical structures, and that success can’t be taken away from the mob lawyer-turned-mayor.

A sense of history made me want to be at Goodman’s final State of the City speech Tuesday. Would it be a warts-and-all self-evaluation? Not a chance.

There was nary a word about the homeless problem or the problems of the mentally ill.

The mentally ill are suddenly front and center because of Jared Loughner’s rampage at U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ event in Tucson, where six were killed and others wounded.

In his 2001 speech, Goodman said, “In order for us to make a difference, we are going to have to solve, not manage, many of the social issues.”

The issues have not been solved or managed on Goodman’s watch, and the economy hasn’t helped.

Goodman convinced other local governments that homelessness is a regional problem, not just a downtown Las Vegas problem. But a drive along Bonanza Road or Main Street provides evidence that the problems of the homeless, mental illness and substance abuse remain rampant.

Yet, despite his sometimes boorish behavior, his sometimes questionable ethics and his tendency toward revisionist history, Goodman has been a far better mayor than I anticipated. He had a vision and made more of it a reality than I thought possible.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.