Next LV mayor could have toughest act to follow

In 1999, the year Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of Las Vegas, so much that's now emblematic of the city and the metropolitan area was new or nonexistent.

The Fremont Street Experience was just 4 years old, and the empty Neonopolis mall at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street that's resisted all attempts at success had not even broken ground.

The Bellagio, with its signature fountains, was a new kid on the Strip, "Ocean's Eleven" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" had not ignited pop culture, and Goodman had not yet become the face of Southern Nevada.

The region entered almost a decade in which Las Vegas became the symbol of a boomtown American dream where growth never stopped and everything would go up forever -- until it all crashed.

The city of Las Vegas will elect its first new mayor in 12 years in 2011, and that person will inherit a recession-struck city with thorny long-term issues to struggle with and little hope of another boom to make everything right again.

So far, Larry Brown, a Clark County commissioner and former Las Vegas councilman, has announced his intent to try to follow in Goodman's footsteps, as has sitting Las Vegas Councilman Steve Ross.

Those considering the race include Steve Wolfson, an attorney and sitting council member; James D. Leavitt, attorney and chairman of the Nevada Board of Regents; and downtown business owner Michael Cornthwaite.

That list is expected to grow, and Goodman predicted more than 10 people would enter the race.

Whoever wins the seat will continue to deal with Goodman's legacy, since the results of some of his championed causes will be his successor's to deal with.

Goodman took an institutionally weak position and made it into a showcase for his martini-loving, showgirl-escorting, Mafia-joke-cracking self, but the times might call for something more subdued, said David Damore, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"If the role is to publicize the city and bring attention to it, he did that -- sort of a promoter-in-chief," he said. "He probably enjoyed it a whole lot more when there was a lot more money.

"I don't think anybody's quite the self-promoter that Goodman is. Given the economic conditions here, that might be a better fit. Let's get back to the nuts and bolts instead of pie in the sky."

Candidates are already sounding that theme.

Brown, who was known for plunging into budgetary details on the council, uses phrases such as "back to basics" and "quiet leadership" and promised to focus on the city's "core services" of public safety, infrastructure and parks.

He readily acknowledges that his deliberative public style is markedly different than Goodman's.

"I will anticipate myself as more of a roll-up-the-sleeves-and-get-to-work" type of official, said Brown, 53.

Ross, 48, tends toward gregariousness more than Brown and has been most vocal about construction and growth-related issues. He wouldn't try to match Goodman's style while trying to round out the mayor's vision, said campaign manager Steve Redlinger.

"I think Steve sees Mayor Goodman as setting the bar higher," Redlinger said. "The next 10 years is going to be, 'How do we fill in the blank spots?' -- more stable industry, more stable jobs, jobs that aren't necessarily so dependent on the tourism industry. As good as those boom years were, the next 10 years could be the complete opposite."

Wolfson's signature council issue has been the concept of a "new city employee" with a different wage and benefit package. He talked in general about what the city needs since he hasn't decided to join the race yet.

"Anybody who tries to imitate Oscar Goodman would be making a mistake. He's one of a kind," he said.

"Our next mayor needs to be pragmatic and realistic. The budget and jobs have to be our No. 1 priority. These changing times aren't over. We're never going to have double-digit growth again."

Still, Wolfson added, whoever becomes the next mayor still has to be the "First Face" of flashy Las Vegas.

"I think a little flair is OK, too," he said. "The mayor must possess integrity and high morals, but at the same time have a little fun."

Leavitt declined to talk for the record other than to confirm he's considering the race.

Cornthwaite, for his part, comes across as a quiet, focused businessman who said he'd be a reluctant candidate, since the next mayor won't be able to hold outside employment.

"That would be challenging to any business person who doesn't want to become a full-time bureaucrat," said Cornthwaite, 37. "I'm not afraid of doing it ... at the same time, I don't picture myself as someone who's going to get that excited about the mundane side of it."

What happened during Goodman's tenure was anything but mundane. The city expanded by 23 square miles and experienced, for a while, stupendous growth.

The city's general fund budget of $262 million in 1999, for example, more than doubled by 2008 to $527 million. Median housing prices crested above $300,000, and the city built parks, fire stations and other infrastructure to support a population that went from 466,000 to an estimated 610,000 today.

Many of those gains are gone now. Median housing prices are back in the low $100,000 range. New houses cost an average of $100 a square foot in October, the same as in 2000. And the city's budget has shrunk to $485 million, leading to layoffs and wage cuts for city employees -- some of the many signs that the good ol' days may be gone for good.

Employee pay and benefits is probably the largest long-term issue facing city leaders. The end of the boom years threw into sharp relief how fast, and unsustainably, those costs had been growing during the good times.

So far, deals have been reached with city bargaining units that largely freeze pay at current levels and chip away at some benefit costs. Some even establish new pay and benefit scales for new employees, should hiring commence again.

Geoffrey Lawrence, fiscal policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a Las Vegas conservative think tank, noted that the two main sources of city revenue -- the consolidated sales tax and property taxes -- are down significantly. While there's hope for sales tax revenues to heal soon, "property taxes are probably going to stay down for a long time."

"This is going to be a structural reform in order to get through this downturn," Lawrence said. "They're going to have to bring their labor costs in line with what they can afford to pay.

"That's a sensitive political issue too, because the unions wield a lot of political power. It's probably a hard sell when you're talking about employees taking pay cuts when you're building a new city hall."

That new city hall, which is under construction, is another issue for future elected leaders. It's supposed to be complete in 2012, and annual payments on the $185 million used to finance construction are scheduled to start in 2013 -- even though, at the moment, the city is using reserves to plug a gap between revenues and expenditures.

The rationale was that investing in a new city hall would help spur development downtown, which would generate jobs and the needed revenue by the time the payments were due.

"That may not be a gamble that'll pay off," Lawrence said. "Any promises you might make in a campaign about committing tax dollars to this or that are kind of limited, because the tax dollars are already committed.

"It limits the flexibility of future councils."

The one downtown development Goodman would most like to see is an arena for a professional sports team, and that push, too, is something that will extend beyond his final term.

Las Vegas has a long-term exclusive negotiating contract with Cordish Cos. to explore building an arena -- now on a site in Symphony Park, a former Union Pacific rail yard the city acquired for redevelopment. It's home to the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and the under-construction Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

There have been glimmers of hope recently for the city -- next year's budget forecast, for example, predicts a far smaller budget shortfall than originally feared, and Zappos recently announced it will move its headquarters and 1,000 employees from Henderson to the old City Hall building when it's vacated.

Still, "it would be hard to make the argument that they're going to come back anytime soon, particularly if they don't land the arena," Damore said. "They still have all these long-term liabilities they have to deal with.

"You kind of see them making as much hay as they can about that old rail yard down there. That's pretty much all they have."

The Zappos announcement is a "plus," he added, but "it's not like we're poaching this from California. They're moving five miles ... I don't think it's a huge game-changer. Who knows who else is going to follow suit now that they're in there?"

Las Vegas' next mayor will be considered full-time, meaning whoever it is will have to give up other employment.

The City Council passed new salaries for elected officials in 2007 and set the mayor's salary at 180 percent of a Clark County commissioner's pay.

In 2011, that salary will be more than $130,000, roughly double the existing mayoral salary.

Brown, Ross and Wolfson are Democrats. Cornthwaite is registered as an independent. City races are nonpartisan.

There will also be three City Council seats on the ballot -- Wards 1, 3 and 5. Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese cannot run again for his Ward 3 seat, so that contest will be open. Councilman Ricki Barlow said he will seek re-election in Ward 5, as will Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian in Ward 1.

Candidate filing will take place Jan. 25 to Feb. 4. The city's primary will be April 5.

In contested races, if a candidate gets at least 50 percent of the primary vote, that candidate wins the race. If no one gets a majority, the top two finishers compete in the June 7 general election.

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.