Goodman may have protested too much

Sometimes a reporter backs away from a story too soon. Back on Feb. 14, I reported on the R-J's days-old normclarke.com Web site that a $10 billion downtown development that would include a sports arena was on the drawing boards and that Mayor Oscar Goodman was aware of it.

I speculated the arena project might be the big announcement the mayor was promising during NBA All-Star week.

I received a call within hours from a furious Goodman, who let me know in the strongest possible language that there was "absolutely no truth" to my report, that such a story would cause great embarrassment and that he wanted a retraction.

"I wish it were true, but it isn't," he told me.

He was so insistent that he convinced me I had bad information. Even though my source stuck to his guns, I pulled the posting from the Web site. In the print column, I ran his emphatic denial but not a retraction.

After reading the article in Wednesday's Review-Journal headlined "Another arena dream" and watching the marathon City Council debate on TV, I thought the details had a familiar ring, most specifically: a $9.5 billion downtown project with a proposed arena.

Did I have my facts wrong? You decide.

Now I hear there's another arena-tied project, this one in the $15 billion range, with another heavyweight investment group preparing to go public. I'd bet a boatload of martinis that the political maneuverings on the site selection started long ago.

'PHANTOM' UPDATE

Notes from Tuesday's one-year anniversary after-party for "Phantom: The Vegas Spectacular":

Co-Phantoms Brent Barrett and Anthony Crivello have signed for another year, while Kristi Holden has replaced Sierra Boggess as Christine. Boggess is in Denver working on her Broadway role as Ariel in "Little Mermaid."

During the party at David Burke American Cuisine in The Venetian, Barrett and Kristen Hertzenberg, a Christine understudy who also plays the "Mirror Bride," told me of their chance introductions to "Phantom" years ago.

In 1979, long before Barrett ever dreamed he would be a phantom, he visited Opera Garnier, the Paris opera house where Gaston Leroux's novel "Phantom of the Opera" was set in the early 1900s.

Hertzenberg was 13 when she went to Broadway for the first time. Her first show: "Phantom." And that, she said, "was the moment I knew I wanted to be on stage. I dropped the band, joined the choir, and the rest is history."

THE SCENE AND HEARD

Former "Jubilee!" lead dancer Pavel "Peter" Romanyuk has died in Yuma, Ariz., at age 44. He was executive director of the Yuma Ballet Theatre and Performing Arts Company Inc. with his wife, Erika Farrar-Romanyuk. A 1981 graduate of the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet Academy, he won first place in Russian Ballet Competition in 1992. He performed in Las Vegas for almost a decade.

SIGHTINGS

Pamela Anderson and Hans Klok, who star in "The Beauty of Magic" at Planet Hollywood Resort, performing the fire spikes illusion Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show before joining Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa for a taping. They finished their media blitz with an illusion on Conan O'Brien's show. ... Clint Holmes and Earl Turner, who co-star in the production "Just Another Man," attending a performance of "Monty Python's Spamalot" together with their families Tuesday at Wynn Las Vegas. They're celebrating an offer from a theater in London's West End. "But it was for July, and we're not ready," Holmes said. "It's a little early. The fact that they're offering is great." His daughter, Brittany, got married June 10 at Reflection Bay Beach at Lake Las Vegas. Among the guests: Harmik, a Tom Jones impersonator who goes by one name, performed "It's Not Unusual" at the request of the groom, Parker McCoy.

THE PUNCH LINE

"Paula Abdul celebrated her 45th birthday (Monday). Unfortunately, when Paula blew out the birthday candles, her breath caught fire and scorched a two-block radius." -- O'Brien

Norm Clarke can be reached at 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com.