Reporters’ Notebook

HENDERSON MAYORAL CANDIDATE MICHAEL MAYBERRY IS OUT OF THE RACE NOW, so the following information can't hurt, or help, his campaign.

Here's what Mayberry had to say when asked what made him decide to run for elected office: "I think someone slipped something in my Diet Coke. It was a hallucinogenic, and when I woke up I was running for mayor."

It is widely believed that the former Henderson Police Chief was probably kidding.

HENRY BREAN

HENDERSON OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN PLAYING THINGS PRETTY CLOSE TO THE VEST when it comes to the job future of City Manager Mary Kay Peck. She has been on paid leave since mid-March, and sources say she is being forced out.

But who needs official comment when you have a copy of a brochure for the city's newest police substation, dedicated on March 24?

The back of the brochure still lists Peck as city manager but gives Assistant City Manager Mark Calhoun an interesting new job title: acting city manager.

HENRY BREAN

NHL COMMISSIONER GARY BETTMAN MET WITH LAS VEGAS MAYOR OSCAR GOODMAN recently to discuss the future of hockey in Las Vegas, and, well, the future is still in the future.

As with the NBA, Goodman said, the NHL's message was, "Tell us when you're building an arena."

Still, the mayor said he's "very upbeat" -- when is he not? -- and that city officials are negotiating "every day" to get someone to build an arena downtown.

ALAN CHOATE

THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF QUOTABLE MATERIAL IN THE RECENTLY UNSEALED DIVORCE DOCUMENTS OF NEVADA'S FIRST COUPLE, but one phrase has been repeated more than any other: "enraged ferret."

That's how Gov. Jim Gibbons' attorney described life in the executive mansion with Dawn Gibbons. He compared it to "being locked in a phone booth with an enraged ferret."

As a result, a Google search for the words "ferret" and "Gibbons" now yields some 35,900 results, or at least it did as of Friday morning. It's probably more now.

What stands out, though, are the Google results that have nothing to do with the divorce, at least nothing directly.

They include:

• A ferret-lover's blog that rails against a California ban on the animals and against Boyd Gibbons, the director of the California Department of Fish and Game in 1994 and an apparent ferret hater.

• A scholarly paper on the benefits of abdominal surgery in the treatment of ferrets, by a Wisconsin veterinarian named Paul Gibbons.

• A 90-second home movie of someone's rambunctious pet ferret, posted on YouTube and set to Irene Cara's 1984 hit "Flashdance ... What a Feeling." Oh, and the ferret's name is Mr. Gibbons.

HENRY BREAN