reporters’ notebook

District Judge Michael Villani went to great lengths last week to emphasize the civic value of jury duty, even recounting his own recent experience as a juror on a 2½-week civil trial.

Yet when one juror heard his name called to sit for two weeks in the criminal trial of former UMC chief Lacy Thomas, civic duty seemed to be the last thing on his mind.

The juror audibly swore as he headed to the jury box.

BRIAN HAYNES

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: A dispatcher to officers responding to a domestic disturbance call involving a woman and her son: "She's saying that she brought him into this world, and she can take him out."

At a meeting with about 500 business people on Tuesday, Mayor Oscar Goodman reminded the crowd that the Las Vegas Strip isn't even in Las Vegas.

Thousands of visitors drive up and down the resort corridor every day, waxing poetic about how great Las Vegas is, and actually they're in unincorporated Clark County.

So how do they know when they hit the city limits?

"When you get to the corner of Sahara and Paradise, there's a billboard there," Goodman said. "There's a woman in a pink dress in a state of recline, and she says she'll come to your room. Now, I swear on my life I don't know what she'll do when she gets to your room, but the sign next to hers is advertising Viagra. And that is the gateway to my city."

JENNIFER ROBISON

Boy Scouts occasionally turn up at school board meetings to earn credit toward a badge.

After a meandering, 90-minute discussion in which board members wondered what they had voted on in the past, questioned why certain agenda items were even on the agenda and asked whether certain members had been present at past meetings, School Board President Terri Janison asked the boys from Troop 903 what kind of badge they were working on.

"Communication," answered 13-year-old Parker Mulick.

JAMES HAUG