With every State of the City address, Vegas Mayor Goodman improves

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has delivered six State of the City speeches, and I’ve critiqued every one of them.

The worst was the first. Eighty minutes long and boring.

No. 6, delivered Jan. 12, wasn’t brilliant, but clearly she’s improving. She didn’t go off script and become silly as she has in the past.

In one misfire, Goodman joked that half her family was “suicidal” about the presidential election, but added with seriousness that she would work with the Trump administration to obtain Homeland Security funding. Might have wanted to leave that suicidal part out. Half the audience probably voted for President-elect Donald Trump. The other half wouldn’t consider suicide a laugh-riot option.

She waved around a copy of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but not to chastise the newspaper, as she has in previous years for its editorial stance against a taxpayer-funded soccer stadium downtown.

“Not that you want to read the newspaper here, but I believe it when it’s good for us,” she said to applause.

She pointed to a newspaper report to brag that downtown Las Vegas showed the strongest gaming revenue growth rate in the state in 2016.

My problem with Goodman’s speeches is she focuses on things she cannot accomplish. The City Council cannot raise the Medicaid reimbursement rates for doctors. The city cannot turn the old state prison at Jean into a facility that helps the mentally ill homeless. The city cannot improve the state’s education funding.

Those three proposals, which she advocated among her five “hard-core” issues, are all the Nevada Legislature’s bailiwick.

The city can, and has, made it easier to do business in the city. It has made all city facilities fully powered by renewable energy, and it has developed worthy programs. Las Vegas is being honored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors for a program to combat child obesity. Those are all within the city’s purview and praiseworthy.

But the city didn’t build the Lucky Dragon, the first hotel-casino built from the ground up in Las Vegas since 2010. In fact, the city did the right thing and refused to grant tax increment financing to help the developers with a $25 million funding gap.

Toward the end of her hourlong speech, Goodman looked seriously at the crowd of employees, business leaders and others and said she needed their “continued support and active involvement” to accomplish her agenda.

Will they back her? Who knows? Everyone’s in favor of safety. Not everyone wants to help the homeless.

“Our mentally ill homeless population is growing and it’s time to do more,” she said, describing how they sprawl on sidewalks and defecate near businesses or backyards. “If we can return them to a higher quality of life, we will be doing something that is really good.”

Goodman’s passion for helping the homeless is endearing. It contrasts with the indifference to the homeless expressed by her husband, former Mayor Oscar Goodman, during his 12 years in office. He gave an insulting speech to homeless advocates in 2005, saying that giving the homeless sandwiches and water “enable them to remain homeless.”

So let them starve?

Again, the optimistic Carolyn Goodman said there was progress toward bringing a major league sports team to downtown Las Vegas. Instead of calling for a new stadium, she pitched using Cashman Field for a soccer franchise. Nary a word was said about building a new taxpayer-funded stadium in Symphony Park.

Only two of the five things on her “hard-core” list have anything to do with the city: obtaining money for security and bringing a professional sports franchise downtown. She and her husband have been chasing sports for all of their combined 17 years in office.

Sharing credit and thanking others are among Goodman’s finer qualities.

But every State of the City speech would be at least 15 minutes shorter if she didn’t thank so many people for doing their jobs, pausing and looking to see whether they are in the audience.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column runs Thursdays. Leave messages for her at 702-383-0275 or email jmorrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @janeannmorrison on Twitter.