They’re into more than showmanship. They’re struggling to turn the gambling mecca into a thriving 21st century urban place.
https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-las-vegas-goodmans.html
Everything is different in Las Vegas. Even something as simple as the launching of a bike-share program. The bike event started out early on an October morning in standard photo-op fashion. At 7 a.m., workers began setting up a small stage beside the bike station outside the Downtown Grand Hotel and Casino. By 8:15, reporters from the local TV stations were there. Just after 9, the primary speaker, Mayor Carolyn Goodman, arrived. But one piece of stagecraft was conspicuously absent: There were no bikes.
The event started anyway. A reporter asked if the 77-year-old mayor would be riding a bike that day. “Only if it has three wheels,” she responded, explaining that as a child growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan she’d never learned to ride a bike. Reporters looked disappointed. They need not have worried. Moments later, “Viva Las Vegas” erupted from the sound system, and a whole cavalcade of Elvis impersonators, legs pumping furiously, rounded the corner on new City Share bikes. There were three Elvises in the lead -- each sporting the oversized gold-framed sunglasses, bouffant pompadour and white rhinestone suit that the King wore during his Las Vegas years. Behind them, wearing purple T-shirts and Elvis wigs, came a dozen government employees. Laughter swept through the assembled group as the media rushed toward the Elvises. You might call this Las Vegas politics, Goodman-style.
It’s been 17 years since the Goodman family took control of the city’s top elected office. Oscar Goodman, a flamboyant mob attorney -- he played himself in the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie Casino -- stunned political observers by winning the mayoralty in his first political campaign. He was re-elected twice. When term limits forced him to step down in 2011, his wife Carolyn decided to run. She was 71 years old and had never served in office before. Despite a somewhat shaky grasp of municipal issues, she won handily.
Oscar (in Las Vegas, he’s a first-name celebrity) was a showman. At a time when some residents and business leaders wanted to slough off Las Vegas’ louche past, Oscar embraced it. He attended events with showgirls on each arm. He kept a prop from the movie The Godfather -- the severed horse’s head the Corleone family put into the bed of an uncooperative Hollywood producer -- in his office. When a group of fourth-graders asked him what book he’d bring with him to a desert island, he said he’d prefer to bring a bottle of gin.
snip
= new reply since forum marked as read
