Reporter’s Notebook

THE CULINARY UNION BROKE NEW LEGAL GROUND in a filing last week over disputed ballot measures: Time travel.

The union's legal brief states that challenges to the measures should've been filed within 15 days of "December 8, 2009."

Wow, Christmastime already?

ALAN CHOATE

IN THIS TIME OF ECONOMIC DISTRESS, the state of Nevada is asking for help from BRAT, an acronym for Bond Rating Advisory Team. It is made up of financial officers from state and local governments.

"It's an interesting acronym, BRAT. I'm on it," said Jeff Weiler, the chief financial officer for the Clark County School District.

The committee may be an outlet for the frustration of financial officers. "I think it's a misery-loves-company kind of thing," Weiler said.

JAMES HAUG

PRESIDENT OBAMA STILL HASN'T RESPONDED to Mayor Oscar Goodman's, uh, request for clarification following the president's prime-time diss of Las Vegas.

Goodman's not happy about that.

"I've been seething," he told members of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. "To me, it's tantamount to him being down in Florida and saying, 'Don't buy oranges.'"

But Obama's due to be in town next month, and "I hope somebody puts me next to him," Goodman said, good-naturedly, but then the former mob attorney realized the Secret Service might not interpret it that way.

"That came out wrong. If I'd said that in my old life, he would've had something to worry about."

ALAN CHOATE

THE HEAVY HITTER STRIKES AGAIN.

During the murder-for-hire trial of Daimon Monroe, authorities said the defendant and others used code words when planning crimes, including the assassinations of a district judge, county prosecutor and Las Vegas police detective.

The code word for one of Monroe's burglary tools was "Matthew," authorities said. The code word for killing, or carrying out a 'hit,' on one of the targets was "lawyer."

This, authorities said, was also a reference to Glen Lerner, the attorney well known for his "Heavy Hitter" commercials.

DAVID KIHARA

IT'S HARD TO KEEP FROM ACCIDENTALLY SOUNDING DIRTY during a news conference featuring a brothel owner and one of his licensed sex workers.

Just ask Bob Fisher, spokesman for the Chicken Ranch brothel south of Pahrump, who took part in Friday's press briefing on a new organization formed to fight illegal prostitution.

Apparently, the organization is still assembling its advisory board. Or, as Fisher put it, the group is still trying "to flesh it out."

HENRY BREAN