Nobody but Oscar

Twelve years ago, Las Vegas faced a choice: An experienced, if boring, councilman named Arnie Adamsen for mayor, or colorful mob lawyer Oscar Goodman.

The voters overwhelmingly went with Goodman, and never looked back.

In March 1999, before the vote, this newspaper editorialized against Goodman, dubbing him a “barrister to butchers” for his all-too-successful career representing accused mobsters.

“But Oscar Goodman carries so much baggage he could be Sky Cap of the Century at McCarran International Airport,” the editorial said, adding, “But Oscar Goodman is the wrong man for mayor of Las Vegas. Can you imagine this man contemplating Metro’s budget or being generous with the organized crime unit? And as the most visible personification of the ‘new’ Las Vegas, he’d be a PR catastrophe.”

Nobody could imagine Goodman contemplating the intimate details of Metro’s budget, since that job, then and now, belongs to the sheriff.

And as the most visible personification of the “new” Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman has been the biggest booster for the city’s image since Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

Sure, Goodman had some embarrassing moments. Ho told a fourth-grade class he’d prefer a bottle of gin if stranded on a desert island, and later explained that he — the “George Washington of mayors” — could not tell a lie. He called a charity bidder a “short, fat Bette Midler,” and served as a celebrity photographer for a Playboy magazine shoot.

And yet, the public not only forgave him, they ate it up.

Goodman’s showmanship in the courtroom turned out to be his greatest asset in the mayor’s office, too. He persuaded the City Council to buy 61 acres of vacant land west of downtown, and began selling it nationally as “the jewel of the desert.” That jewel sparkles now with a Frank Gehry-designed Alzheimer’s treatment center, a performing arts center, and will soon be home to even more development.

(Full disclosure: My wife does public relations for Newland Communities, master developer of the 61-acre property.)

Goodman’s pitch for young, urban hipsters to live downtown led to the construction of several high-rise condo developments, one of which is now a part-time home for Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. (The company will soon lease the existing City Hall, once the city moves into another Goodman-backed project, a new City Hall on Main Street.)

Did he stumble along the way? Yes. The state Ethics Commission’s 2004 finding that Goodman had used his title to unjustly assist a company in which his son, Ross, was an investor was the low point of his 12 years in office. Goodman appealed that ruling, and eventually cleared his name. But he showed during that incident that some of his former client’s bad habits had rubbed off.

And many critics say Goodman and the City Council that so often went along with the mayor’s plans gave away far too much to private business to get them to locate downtown, from tax breaks for the World Market Center to an ever-sweeter deal for Zappos.

But any honest look at a Goodman mayoralty would have to conclude he had far more good days than bad, and that his campaign promise to restore some luster downtown — which most considered a fool’s errand at the time — was fulfilled. Even his critics must admit that Goodman sparked the redrawing of the downtown skyline almost through sheer willpower, and that he promoted the brand of Las Vegas to the world like no one else. (Even the former publisher of this newspaper conceded in the years since “Anybody but Oscar” was published that Goodman was good for the city.)

Who else could have accomplished all that Goodman did, and set the city on a course toward revitalization in the next decade?

The answer is obvious: Nobody but Oscar.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist, and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.