Oscar Goodman's Las Vegas
Mayor and University President clash over Vegas' new
image
I tell people that the gateway to my city is a billboard that
has the picture of a beautiful woman in a state of recline wearing a pink
dress, saying that she'll come to your room. I don't know what she does
when she gets to the room, but the sign next to it is advertising Viagra.
So maybe that says something about Las Vegas. --
LV Mayor Oscar Goodman, CNN Newsnight, Oct. 1, 2004
INSIDE VEGAS by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
November 1, 2004
At a time when Las Vegas is desperately trying to diversify its economic
base to attract high tech industry and an educated work force, the current
mayor shamelessly promotes our Sin City image, along with an unwelcome
byproduct, HIV.
At first we took it as a joke, but after repeated national news about
our mayor's weird plans for Las Vegas, the truth about our convoluted image
began to surface, especially after Mayor Goodman's recent appearance on
CNN Newsnight. In front of a national TV audience he promoted (unprotected)
sex when he laughingly referred to the city's illicit out-call entertainment
industry.
.
As a former mob lawyer, he should know that escort services are fronts
for prostitution -- the kind that does not require protection from the
spread of HIV. Goodman made light of it, and ended with "So maybe that
says something about Las Vegas."
Not MY Las Vegas!
The mayor used his TV time to blatantly put down our city and make light
of a highly illegal and unsafe activity, a growing problem he instead should
be fighting along with other outlets for unprotected sex; the dozens of
massage parlors, and the city's infestation of streetwalkers.
The crack head girls, they go 10. I start at 50 (dollars) and
up. -- Donna Mirin - streetwalker (KVBC TV News,
10/23/03)
Goodman supporter and prostitute
Donna Mirin (KVBC TV News)
I only wish we had a better spokesman. With an ambassador like Oscar
Goodman, I cannot recommend that families move to Las Vegas during the
remainder of his tenure in office. The guy obviously has no morals -- he's
a total embarrassment and disgrace to the many good people living here.
Mayor Oscar Goodman and
friends (LV SUN photo)
In total contrast to the classless mayor, University of Nevada, Las
Vegas President Carol Harter pleads,
"Las Vegas is still known primarily ... as a rather crude and unsophisticated
place. Such image building does little for us in higher education and actually
runs somewhat counter to our efforts, and those of the most serious of
our citizens, to build a cosmopolitan and sophisticated city."
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
President Carol Harter
(Photo by Isaac Brekken, LV REVIEW JOURNAL)
This after Goodman promoted redeveloping downtown by converting dilapidated
motels into bordellos a few blocks from City Hall. "It would turn old motels
into beautiful brothels," the mayor told
Ed Koch of the LAS VEGAS SUN. Fortunately, public outcry killed
his idea.
(At the same time as his statement, it was heavily rumored that one
of Goodman's law partners was in neighboring Nye County where prostitution
is legal, soliciting licensed brothel owners as clients in the event prostitution
was legalized in downtown Las Vegas, and to see if they had an appetite
to invest there.)
University President Harter also disagreed with the mayor. "What is
clearly undeveloped in Las Vegas is the particular social and cultural
climate that characterizes a Madison, Wisconsin; a Boulder, Colorado; Seattle,
Washington; ... Austin, Texas," Harter said.
She's right. Just look at our local telephone directory to see which
way Las Vegas is going. There are 117 pages of ads for out-call dancers
-- prostitutes, who as the mayor boasts will come to your room. He's disgracing
our city! A city with a population approaching two million does not deserve
to be treated this way. We have children living here!
.
Goodman reads to children during
National Reading Week
And that's what concerns me most about our current mayor -- his callous
attitude toward our city's youth. When asked about the city code allowing
teenagers to strip and lap dance in certain
topless bars, Mayor Goodman actually said,
"Our ordinance is perfect." "There's no prostitution taking place, and
if there was, they should arrest them, not make some big fuss as to what
some 18-year-old girl is doing to make a living." "I think anything that's
legal should be here," said the mayor.
To see what he considers "legal," just thumb through pages 789 - 906
of our Sprint Yellow Pages. No wonder President Harter is having
such a tough time promoting higher education around here!
Page 889, Sprint Las Vegas Yellow
Pages
(Allowed by
the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, the state's electric and telephone
regulatory agency)
When I travel with my family including my eleven year old daughter,
I'm beginning to find it an embarrassment to say where we're from. Too
often, people say "How can you live in such a place?" Many look at me in
amazement when I tell them how great my kids have done, and what wonderful
opportunities there are here. However, after 45 years as a happy full time
Las Vegas resident, I'm starting to get tired of the adverse remarks from
outsiders, but mostly I'm getting tired of the moronic statements from
our mayor and the crappy image he's creating after we worked so hard to
legitimize our town and make it a decent place to live.
Unfortunately, that bad image won't be ending soon. Oscar Goodman is
the most popular
politician in the history of our city, and 117 pages of prostitution ads
prove it.
So, "maybe that says something about Las Vegas."
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Copyright © Steve Miller
email Steve Miller at: Stevemiller4lv@aol.com
