Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman reflects on her tenure at City Hall
Oscar Goodman’s tenure as Las Vegas mayor was ending when he approached his wife and their four children, telling them, “Mom should run.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Mayor Carolyn Goodman recalled in August as her own last term was wrapping up, marking an end to a quarter-century political legacy of the Goodmans as heads of the Las Vegas City Council.
Her only requirement to run for office, she quipped to the family, was that if she won, she wanted to have business cards engraved on mock $1,000 casino chips compared with her husband’s $100 chips, a lore at the time.
Carolyn Goodman became mayor in summer 2011. She, too, termed-out making way for Mayor-elect Shelley Berkley, who will take her oath of office on Wednesday.
“And then I walk away just like Oscar did when he gave me the gavel and swore me in,” Goodman said in a sit-down interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Then I’m off, and just the rest of my life is going to be as it’s always been: one foot in front of the other, handling the issues that are there.”
‘Adored being mayor’
Goodman said she would spend time cleaning the family’s longtime home but expects boredom to kick in shortly after, and that she’ll continue to serve on some capacity.
“I love people; I’ve loved my life; I’ve certainly adored being mayor,” she said. “I have to be with people, I just love it. I love to solve problems; I love to mediate issues where people are at each other’s throats.”
Newly married, Carolyn and Oscar Goodman relocated from Philadelphia to Las Vegas in 1964. Her biography notes that the couple had $87 to their name.
Oscar became a prominent mob attorney. Carolyn Goodman said he earned enough to allow her to raise their four children who were born here.
She coached T-ball and drove them around to school and dance and music lessons.
Education advocate
When the kids were old enough in 1984, she founded the Meadows School, fundraising and obtaining land from Howard Hughes’ family.
Meadows was the first Nevada nonprofit K-12 school focused on preparing children for college, according to her biography. She led the school for a quarter century, never taking a salary.
As mayor, Goodman said she’s most proud of the city’s preschool programs, including those that teach Spanish. She also touted the Downtown Loop, a free shuttle service around the downtown neighborhoods.
She cherishes the growth the city has experienced under the Goodman tenures.
She appreciates that children of low-skilled workers — who moved here when there was nothing developed west past Valley View Boulevard or south of Flamingo Road — have thrived in Las Vegas.
Legacy of good
Goodman said she has no regrets for how she governed, only that it can’t go on for longer.
A critical moment came after a gunman fatally wounded 60 victims and injured hundreds more on the Las Vegas Strip on Oct. 1, 2017.
She was part of a group of Clark County officials that had undergone counterterrorism training years before the local tragedy.
Goodman was appointed to be the public face in case something happened here. She received a phone call minutes after the gunfire began and spent all night visiting hospitals.
She urged locals to give blood.
“It was terrible,” she said about the unprecedented dark day in Southern Nevada history. “We lost a tragic number of innocent people.”
The Healing Garden was born on donated city property. Every anniversary, she helps read the names of the victims in somber ceremonies at the garden.
“I’ve seen a change, and hopefully it continues to stay on the path,” she said about Las Vegas’ future.
Goodman said she was proud of being a registered nonpartisan, noting that partisan politics, like with others, turns her off.
Asked about the Goodman legacy, she said: “If my grandchildren and their children know the name, I’d be really pleased.”
She added: “The Goodmans never ended up in jail, they didn’t steal. They were respectful of others, they brought people together, weren’t divisive and laughed — they had a good time.”
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.