Which Oscar are you: The gin pitchman, above? Or the Major League Baseball enthusiast, below? The real Las Vegas mayor will be hosting other mayors this weekend, primarily at events held outside the city limits.

Las Vegas will host about 300 mayors from across the country this weekend, spending about $560,000 to entertain them and showcase the city -- or locations near enough that it makes no difference to Oscar Goodman that they're outside his jurisdiction.

The mayors and 1,000 family members and staff attending this weekend's gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors will stay at Paris Las Vegas, which is outside Las Vegas city limits, in the Clark County township of Paradise.

Between workshops on avian flu, homelessness and alternative fuels, the dignitaries will be treated to a "VIP poker lesson" at Paris Las Vegas' card room, a Shark Reef tour at Mandalay Bay, and an "Oscar's Night" at Bellagio, among other events. With the exception of a few hours at the Fremont Street Experience on Sunday night and a trip to World Market Center, all the events are in unincorporated Clark County, where Mayor Oscar Goodman has as much official authority as he does in Paris, France.

So what does this say about the state of the city and its downtown?

"It's funny that the city of Las Vegas would deem the only way to treat visiting dignitaries is to get them outside the city of Las Vegas," said Steven Miller, policy director of Nevada Policy Research Institute, a free-market think tank.

As for using tax dollars to pay for an event being held largely outside the city, Miller said: "There's so little consideration given to the city residents, employers, workers themselves. Instead, there is this constant kind of obsequiousness to the Mecca of the Strip. I can almost see Oscar's prayer rug on the ground as he leads the entire congregation."

Goodman said he has spent seven years trying to convince the U.S. Conference of Mayors to hold its annual meeting in Las Vegas. His lobbying included persuading the elected officials to overcome fears that their constituents might perceive a Las Vegas outing as frivolous.

"This makes us legitimate," Goodman said. "Seven years ago, I went back to Washington, D.C., and they kicked me out of town. The proposal was met with derision and scorn."

And Goodman dismissed any concern that his domain extends only to Sahara Avenue and doesn't include the locations most frequently associated with Las Vegas.

He pointed out that Las Vegas receives a percent of the room tax, even if it is generated on the Strip. Not that he wants to advertise the fact that the Strip isn't in Las Vegas.

"I'm the mayor of everything," he said. "Everybody thinks that everything is the city of Las Vegas, and I'm certainly not going to do anything to dissuade them."

R&R Live, awarded the contract in November, planned the conference.

Finance Director Mark Vincent said many of the locations were chosen based on which venues would give free or discounted rates.

Perhaps, as the mayor contends, only academics, Clark County politicians and nattering nabobs of negativism care about the border between city and county. But having the nation's municipal leaders here highlights the uncomfortable fact that much of what happens in Vegas, actually happens in the township of Paradise.

"The reality is, the city of Las Vegas represents fewer than one-third of the residents of the Las Vegas Valley," said Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa. "And if unincorporated Clark County were a city, it would be the largest in the state, not to mention the most important, given that the Las Vegas Strip is in the county."

This isn't unprecedented. Influence and growth has been shifting outside of city governments to counties since the 1950s and 1960s said professor Mark Gottdiener, author of "Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City" and a professor of sociology at the University of Buffalo.

He said governments are not thinking regionally. "If the national conference of mayors is meeting in Clark County, they're just like everyone else. They're ignoring the cities, ignoring the center by not staying there," Gottdiener said.

Before Goodman invaded the Strip, Bugsy Siegel crossed the city-county line to build the Flamingo. He wanted to be on the county side, where taxes were much lower, Gottdiener said.

"This tradition of ignoring the city, escaping the city, is a long one," he said.

But Goodman dismissed such thinking. "I don't care if some invisible line makes a difference to misanthropes. I was just in North Las Vegas, and they said, 'Hi mayor!' I can't help it."

About $1.35 million in cash and in-kind donations have helped pay for the conference, and more contributions are expected. Altogether, the event is expected to cost $1.9 million dollars.

The city's cost has been dramatically reduced by donations like the $225,000 worth of dinner and tickets to Cirque du Soleil's new show "Love" and another $122,600 for the "Hot Tropical Nights" celebration at Red Rock Resort. That newly opened casino is just outside city limits.

Financial records provided by the city don't specify what, precisely, much of the money is being spent on or what the donations are for. In total, there have been 70 private donors of in-kind services or cash. The contributors included Bally's Jubilee, American Medical Response, General Growth, Lance Burton, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Chippendales, the Golden Nugget, Station Casinos and Southern Wine and Spirits.

The subcontractor hired by R&R to solicit the freebies said it was not authorized to provide the specific amounts each entity donated, officials said.

But Goodman said he chipped in about $10,000 of his own money to help pay for four new mayoral bobblehead dolls. Each night of the conference, Friday to Monday, mayors will be given a new addition to the Goodman bobblehead series. (Note to collectors: There are already seven Goodman bobbleheads.)

Among the costs that taxpayers will pick up:

• $73,000 to R&R Live for putting on the conference.

• $100,000 to Capitol Connections, the subcontractor who is raising the money.

• $100,000 for ground transportation.

• $45,000 for printing costs.

• $143,000 for the Friday night "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" dinner at Paris Las Vegas' Ah Sin and Risque restaurants.

Not that it's all fun and games. There will be plenty of workshops and resolutions and the mayors will spend a morning building a Habitat for Humanity house.

"This is serious business here," Goodman said. "All the datelines coming out of here will have 'Las Vegas' on them."

Plus, at the business council's breakfast, a presentation on the redevelopment of downtown Las Vegas "will be the centerpiece," he said. The breakfast, of course, will be held outside city limits.