Stavros Anthony sworn in as new mayor pro tem

On July 6, the same day Carolyn Goodman took office as mayor, the Las Vegas City Council approved Ward 4 Councilman Stavros Anthony as the new mayor pro tem.

He replaced Gary Reese, who stepped down due to term limits.

Anthony said the newly elected mayor asked him to take the position, and he was honored to accept.

"She said she thought I was the best person for it," he said. "Something like that you don't turn down."

The position includes being available to the mayor for discussion and possibly to offer an opinion. The mayor pro tem takes over mayoral duties in case of an emergency -- such as allocating personnel and equipment -- if the mayor is not available or unable to serve for any reason.

Anthony speculated that his experience with the Metropolitan Police Department, which he joined in 1980 and retired from before taking office, could be one of the reasons Goodman selected him.

"I've done quite a bit of emergency management, ran an operations center and been an incident commander," he said.

Anthony's resume includes being captain of the department 's Northwest Area Command.

As a councilman , he is at City Hall throughout the week and available for various events -- ground breakings, store openings, community health fairs or recreational events. His work week can be as few as 30 hours or as many as 60, he said.

He said he had no problem adding more hours to be available to the mayor and attend functions with her.

Generally, mayor pro tems serve until term limits require them to step down. Diana Paul, the city's senior public information officer, said the only time in recent history when a mayor had to replace a pro tem was in 2000, when Reese was appointed to the position vacated by Michael McDonald.

McDonald admitted taking money from strip club owner Mike Galardi as a consultant on zoning and land-planning issues and was indicted.

Although Anthony's new responsibilities will expand to looking at city wide issues, he said looking out for the constituents of his ward will always be his "No. 1 priority. That's who elected me."

Other city officials sworn in that same day by outgoing Mayor Oscar Goodman include Ward 3 Councilman Bob Coffin and Las Vegas Municipal Court judges Susan Roger (Department 2) and Heidi Almase (Department 3). In addition, the six Municipal Court judges elected Judge Cynthia Leung as their new chief judge. Her term will extend through June 30, 2013.

Contact Summerlin and Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949