Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas

by Oscar Goodman

  The banquet was at the MGM Grand. All the men were decked out in tuxedoes and the women in evening gowns. I sat by myself, drinking a martini. I hadn’t bothered to ask Carolyn to join me because I felt nothing good was going to take place. I didn’t like the people who were attending; they thought they were big shots. It just wasn’t my kind of crowd.

  The event went on and on, boring as all get-out. And then I heard someone say, “Best Elected Official . . . Oscar Goodman.” I was floored. I took my drink in hand and climbed the stairs to the stage and looked out over a very surprised group of people. More surprised than I was, I guess. This was my chance to even the score. My acceptance speech, as best I can remember, went something like this: “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I am the happiest mayor in the world. This past year everything has been perfect for me with one exception. When I was elected, I had two small puppies at home. One passed away, and now I only have one puppy in the house. As a result, I don’t know what to do with the other half of the newspaper.”

  Dead silence. No one knew what to do.

  I raised my drink in a toast and walked off the stage. It felt great.

  Then I went back to working on redeveloping the inner city.

  I have a tendency to think out loud. It’s not carelessness on my part; it’s part of my Socratic training as a lawyer. You postulate an issue and look at it from all sides. You have to recognize that it may not be all black and white. Everything has a tinge of gray.

  Another example: if you want a job in Las Vegas, you have to have a work card. When I took office, it was standard for the police to deny anyone with a criminal record the right to work in the city. Criminal record? Work card denied. I called the cop who was in charge and said I wanted that to stop. I told him my philosophy. Las Vegas has always been a place for second chances; look at some of the Founding Fathers. If a business is willing to hire someone who has a criminal record—if the business owner is aware of this and still wants to give that person a chance—then the city shouldn’t stand in the way.

  We got more people working that way. It was just the right thing to do.

  But I was frustrated. I was six months into my first term and other than building the river, I hadn’t done much to get downtown moving. I wanted a Renaissance, but I was worried it was all going down the toilet. The thought occurred to me that I might spend the next three and a half years fighting a losing battle.

  At about that time Dan Van Epp, the head of the Hughes Corporation, stopped by my office. He had opposed my election, but now he said he’d had a change of heart. He saw what I was trying to do and he wanted to help. I told him my ideas and my frustration, and he set up a meeting with one of the urban redevelopment experts who worked for the Rouse Company, which was a major player in urban renewal. The company had done projects like the Baltimore Inner Harbor, New York’s Seaport, and the rebuilding of the North End in Boston, including Faneuil Hall. I needed a 101 course in revitalizing a city, and this expert could give it to me.

  We sat in my office for an hour and I unloaded. I poured my heart out, told him all of my plans and dreams and what I wanted to do for downtown. He listened, and then he said it couldn’t happen.

  “You can’t do it,” he said. “You don’t have any land.”

  When I went home that night, I was distraught. Three and a half more years of this stupid job, I thought. But then I realized that there was land available. There was an old railroad site, about 235 acres, sitting vacant right in the middle of the area where I wanted to rebuild downtown.

  The prior administration had used—or perhaps “abused” is the better word—eminent domain to benefit private developers. I had made a commitment not to do that. There was no way my administration was going to use the power of the city to take land from one private property owner and give it to another so that he could profit.

  But this was different. The land I had my eye on was owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. I called them up and asked about buying the property. They said no way, it’s not for sale. But they said that they didn’t own all of the parcel; Lehman Brothers had sixty-one acres. Some time ago, there had been talk about building a football stadium there. It never happened, and the New York investment group had foreclosed on a loan and was now holding the property.

  I went to New York and had a meeting with Lehman Brothers. They wanted $33 million, which the city didn’t have. But we had something else—vacant land in a technology park in an affluent section of the city. We worked out a trade.

  The result was the beginning of the Renaissance.

  Today, downtown Las Vegas is alive with shops and stores on the east side of the tracks. On the west side we have a brand-new cultural and performing arts center, a brain institute, a premium outlet mall, and a major furniture showroom. There is a great diversity of small shops, stores, restaurants, and bars. We’ve used tax abatements, a concept I learned about on the job. You give businesses a tax break when they come in, and they promise to put a part of that break back into their business. It’s a win-win. Not every voter understands the concept of redevelopment and incentivizing. I had to fight some battles, but I knew I was right. We waived liquor license fees to attract taverns with entertainment components. We rebated taxes for infrastructure improvements. We became reasonable with permitting approvals. In short, we made it easier for a businessman to do business in the city.

  When people go to the new Smith Center for the Performing Arts, as they did recently, to see a production of Billy Elliot, the Musical or to hear Itzhak Perlman, the violin virtuoso, they say, “Thank you, Mister Mayor, this is wonderful.” They’re not thinking about the tax abatements or the other city expenditures that were used to create the vitality. They don’t care how it was funded; they’re just enjoying themselves and their city.

  That’s what I wanted to do as mayor.

  When we first got the ball rolling, Donald Trump came into town for a meeting. I had met Trump before. The first time was at a party given for a casino executive at the Hilton. We also got together once when Carolyn and I were in New York. Trump invited us to stop by his office.

  We were ushered in and he was on the phone. He motioned for us to sit down. He was talking to Harvey Weinstein about his reality show, The Apprentice. Coincidentally, the night before, the popular television series CSI had aired an episode in which I had made an appearance.

  Once Trump got off the phone, we started babbling to each other about how great those two shows were. When we left, Carolyn just shook her head.

  “I never saw two bigger egos in one room at the same time,” she said.

  Trump came to Las Vegas and made a pitch about developing our site. He and I walked the sixty-one acres that the city had purchased from Lehman Brothers. He immediately understood its potential and was interested, but he wanted to develop the entire site himself. I was familiar with his product: sleek, modern, and, in my opinion, utilitarian. I wanted eclectic architecture. Not one style, but many styles, a conglomerate of many interesting and unique buildings. Trump did give me a perspective that has served me well. He said, “Don’t look at the railroad tracks as an impediment. Treat them as though they were a river.”

  When you do that, you sort of like the tracks.

  It was rewarding and exciting to watch it all take shape. Once we had the land and developers started to show interest, things took off. It helped, I think, that I was the mayor. I’m not being cocky when I say that, but realistic. If a podiatrist (and I like podiatrists since I have sore feet) had been elected mayor and tried to do these things, maybe he would have succeeded; maybe not. I think I was able to make it happen because of the attention I got. All the national publications wanted to do stories about the “mob lawyer who became the mayor.” And whenever I was interviewed, I talked about my vision, about how I wanted to create a jewel in the desert; how the downtown I envisioned was going to be the heart and soul of the city.

  There was a story in the New York Times, Sunday edition, fro
nt page. Then we got a cover story in U.S. News and World Report. Then the Los Angeles Times called. They wanted to do a piece about the jewel in the desert. We got a mall developer to build not in the suburbs, but downtown. People said I was nuts; malls weren’t for downtown. But whenever I was asked, I would say, “It’s the best dollar-per-square-foot-producing mall in America.”

  Actually, I made that up. But it got repeated and took on a truth of its own. I was the mayor, and I could say whatever I wanted.

  There’s nothing like a “Not guilty” jury verdict in a tough case. As I said earlier, when it comes to personal satisfaction, it’s almost orgasmic. But when I look back now on what I accomplished as mayor, it’s a different kind of feeling. It’s lasting satisfaction, knowing you’ve made a contribution that will be there for a very long time.

  Bricks and mortar and a feeling of community—that’s what was built, and that’s what kept me going. I woke up every morning and couldn’t wait to get down to City Hall. It was like I was playing Monopoly, but with real money and actual real estate. It was a great feeling.

  I have a friend, Larry Ruvo, whose father Lou had passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. Larry runs one of the largest liquor distributorships in America. He wanted to keep his father’s memory alive and do something about this horrible disease. As a favor to me, he agreed to develop his dream project as the cornerstone of Symphony Park.

  The result is the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, a first-class brain institute staffed by researchers and clinicians from the Cleveland Clinic. Think about it: the gambling capital of the world could be the place where a cure for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases is discovered.

  The futuristic building that houses the brain center was designed by the brilliant architect Frank Gehry. Frank was a real curmudgeon and wasn’t that enthused when he was first approached about designing the brain institute. He was an imposing figure, with a craggy face and a shock of white hair. Larry Ruvo, Don Van Epp, and I met with him at his studio in Los Angeles to try to convince him to take on the project. It was a fascinating place. He had a group of young architects working for him, and you could see he enjoyed the creative process and the interaction. You could almost feel the creative juices flowing.

  At the time, he was working on the design for a basketball arena in Brooklyn for the New Jersey Nets, who were about to move there. I thought it was ingenious. Television screens everywhere, special effects, lighting, surround sound. It would have made attending the game an experience, but the owners of the team decided that it would have detracted from the game itself, so they opted not to go with the idea.

  We talked about a lot of things, and I told him about my “brand” and about the showgirls and the martinis, and how that was now one of the symbols of the city. He seemed intrigued. We were able to convince him to fly back with us on Larry’s private jet. I arranged for him to meet my showgirls, we had a toast, and he agreed to take on the project.

  And once he made his mind up—Katy, bar the door. The titanium building really can’t be described. You have to see it. Critics said it was a depiction of the brain, or half of the brain. The truth is, after Frank told Larry and me that he would be the architect for the project, he picked up a piece of crepe paper, squeezed it in his hand, and threw it out onto a table. That shape and form is exactly the shape and form of the brain center.

  The Smith Center was designed by David Schwarz, who did the Bass Center in Fort Worth. The World Market Center was created by Jon Jerde, who created the Bellagio. All of these fantastic buildings are thriving in Symphony Park.

  You fight little battles and big battles, and you never give up. That was the approach I took when I was a defense attorney, and it was the approach I took when I was mayor.

  I got the homeless out of the area by getting the health department involved. People sleeping on benches or pitching tents in the park and along my river created health hazards for everyone. It was obvious that they had to go. We moved them out, which the social service groups had been trying to do for years. I don’t know where they went, but they’re not causing the problems they used to. It hasn’t made me popular with certain folks, but I don’t care.

  When I was mayor, every year I would go down to the Catholic Charities dinner to serve the homeless at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. I would help serve the meals, and whenever the sponsors asked me to say a few words, I would get booed. Believe me, it didn’t humble me, and it didn’t bother me either.

  Homelessness is a complicated problem for which there are no simple solutions. But a city can’t give up its public space to a group of derelicts who know better. Not all of the homeless are disabled, mentally or physically. Some of them are out there making a good buck panhandling. Las Vegas is a unique place in so many ways, and the homeless take advantage of that. Gamblers are superstitious. They figure if they give a guy on the corner five bucks, they’ll get it back tenfold at the craps table.

  I don’t think we should give them two bucks. I think the ones who need help, who are disabled mentally or physically or both, should get food, shelter, health care, a warm shower, and counseling. That’s the obligation of government, to care for the needy and helpless.

  And as for those who are just too lazy or too shiftless or who just don’t want to work, I really don’t care what happens to them. I just want them to stay out of our parks and away from my river.

  CHAPTER 14

  PROBLEMS WITH THE PRESIDENT

  I’ve never been a big fan of President Obama. I think he’s like most politicians; he talks a better game than he plays, and he says what he thinks people want to hear.

  But the thing that really set me off was when he started using Las Vegas as a whipping boy for the country’s economic troubles. I was chairing a meeting of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in February 2009 when a reporter asked me if I had heard the news. The president was telling corporations not to go to Las Vegas, and not to take their corporate jets on junkets to the Super Bowl.

  “You’re nuts,” I said. “He would never do anything like that. You must have heard it wrong.”

  After we got through the meeting’s agenda, I asked people in the audience if they’d heard any federally elected official saying anything about trips to Las Vegas. No one had, so I thought it was just bad information. But at the end of the meeting, another reporter approached me with a transcript of what Obama had said. The president was at a town hall meeting in Indiana discussing the Wall Street bailout and got a big round of applause by using Las Vegas and the Super Bowl as whipping boys. He said the corporations that got a bailout should be more judicious with their money. Now, there was nothing wrong with saying that. But then he added that they shouldn’t go to Las Vegas for their conventions or take their private jets to the Super Bowl. I’m reading this, and my eyes are popping out of my head.

  “God damn it, he owes us an apology,” I said.

  And that was the beginning of my falling out with the president of the United States. Of course, Carolyn wasn’t surprised. A few years earlier we had gone to Washington when I was being courted to run for the U.S. Senate. We went around and met a lot of the senators, and she remembered what it was like when Obama and I met.

  “It was two ships passing in the night,” she said. “Neither one of you was listening to what the other was saying.”

  But I didn’t have any ill will toward him. In fact, I admired his youthful political acumen. When he was running I was chosen to moderate a debate in Las Vegas during the Democratic primary. He, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton were involved. I had met Senator Clinton before. She was very bright and personable. She knew who I was by reputation, and we always had a good repartee whenever we were in each other’s company. I had never met John Edwards, but he was very cordial.

  And Obama remembered me from the trip to Washington a few years earlier. The first thing he said to me after we shook hands was, “How’s that beautiful blonde wife of yours, Ca
rolyn?”

  I was impressed. He remembered the name, the blonde hair. Really extraordinary when you think of all the people he comes in contact with. So he got some political points from me that night.

  He’s a great orator; I’ll give him that. He has a melodious voice, good expression, good movement. But get him off the monitors, and it’s like a screw is loose. He says things without thinking of the repercussions.

  We didn’t have much contact after he was elected, but when he made that statement, I demanded an apology.

  I wrote him a letter. I guess it wouldn’t be fair to say I demanded an apology, but I said I thought we were entitled to some type of statement from him saying that Las Vegas was a good place to come for a convention.

  I never heard a word. And in the meantime, we were losing convention business. A few days after he made that statement, Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms he was talking about, canceled a convention at Mandalay Bay, a big casino-hotel in town. They paid a $600,000 cancellation fee and instead went to San Francisco, where it’s more expensive and where there’s nothing to do except look at that stupid bridge. State Farm Insurance did the same thing, and I think we lost 1,100 beds. Heads in beds—that’s how you measure the tourism business. It’s the life-blood of the city. This was serious; I think we lost over 340 bookings. Was it all because of the president? I can’t say. But what he said certainly added fuel to the fire.

  A few months later, Obama was supposed to come out for a fundraiser on the Thursday after Memorial Day. I was invited to meet him at the airport. As mayor, I was supposed to welcome the president to the city. I didn’t want to do it.

  “I’m not going,” I said to Carolyn.

  “You have to go,” she said. “Decency requires it. He’s the president. When someone comes to your home, you have to greet them.”