Mayor’s race tighter than team Goodman wants

You didn’t really expect Oscar Goodman to exercise his right to remain silent, did you?

With the campaign clock ticking low, Goodman late last week decided to weigh in on behalf of his wife and Las Vegas mayoral successor Carolyn Goodman in her increasingly heated battle for chief ribbon-cutter against City Councilman Stavros Anthony.

Anthony has taken advantage of voter anger over Mayor Goodman’s enthusiastic support of a $200 million soccer stadium proposal that would have encumbered $56 million in public funds. Although the plan crumbled under its own political weight late last year, its ghost continues to benefit Anthony’s campaign. Of late Anthony has hit Goodman over the estimated $3.1 million cost incurred during the battle over the stadium.

Enter outspoken former Mayor Goodman. In a last-minute mailer, the former mob attorney and three-term City Hall mouthpiece calls out Anthony as a political prevaricator in a “special message.”

Turns out he loves Las Vegas and loved being the mayor.

Then he writes, “However I cannot sit back during the current Mayoral campaign and listen to the lies and hypocrisy being uttered by City Councilman Stavros Anthony. This guy didn’t say two words when he served with me but he sure is talkative now that he is running for Mayor.”

Goodman then takes credit for the city’s expense in pursuing development of the real estate at Symphony Park.

“If you are looking for someone to hold accountable for this expenditure, point the finger at me!” he writes.

Well, OK.

In a response letter — you knew there would be one, didn’t you? — Anthony retorts in a message headlined, “Can I tell you how fed up I am of running for mayor against Oscar Goodman.”

“Your next mayor will be Carolyn Goodman or myself. That is whom you need to consider and whom you will vote for on April 7,” he writes. “The debate is between her and I.”

He then takes aim at … Oscar Goodman for his “latest personal attack.”

Anthony eventually tries to redirect the argument toward what he calls Carolyn Goodman’s attempt to “reach into our taxpayer account and hand private developers $125+ million of our tax money.

“…The fact is the mayor had no problem funding a personal project she wanted with our tax dollars. She wanted to go development shopping with our checkbook.”

Former Mayor Goodman reminds voters that Anthony also voted to forward the stadium development plan. In other words, he also voted to underwrite the deal he now vilifies as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

It’s spicy stuff, but it surely makes political rail birds wonder whether the race is much closer than Team Goodman had anticipated due to the fallout from the fumbled soccer stadium development issue.

We’ll see just how angry city voters really were some time tonight.

INTERSTATE 11: Elected officials attended an official groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning near Hoover Dam for the Interstate 11 project, which has received eight lanes of media hype in recent months.

What is getting fewer headlines is the snarl of traffic that on weekends starts near the Nevada-Arizona state line and extends all the way to Railroad Pass. Relief for that can arrive none too soon for Boulder City residents.

ON THE BOULEVARD: There was a time Tony Zerilli’s family could get things done on the Strip. Zerilli, who died recently in Florida of natural causes at age 87, was a man with a notorious name who never was quite able to return his crime crew to its former glory.

Before their hidden ownership stake was exposed, the Zerillis and their associates had a piece of the Frontier and were interested in expanding the family holdings on the burgeoning Strip and all the way down to Laughlin on the Colorado River.

That all went up in a cloud of cheap cigar smoke.

In and out of a courtroom, Zerilli held on in Detroit.

In 2013, he made headlines when he gave an interview in which he claimed to know where the remains of the late Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa were buried. The FBI dug some holes but found not a trace of Hoffa, one of the real godfathers of Las Vegas.

As for Zerilli, well, he was in his late 80s. Maybe his memory had betrayed him.

Or, perhaps his plan to make one final score off the mob mystique went the way of most of his hustles.

But come to think of it, he did die of natural causes.

In his racket, that’s a newsworthy event.

Have an item for the Bard of the Boulevard? Email comments and contributions to Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.