LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Two weeks from today, Mayor Carolyn Goodman leaves office and returns to private life.
She has been term limited out. Goodman has served three terms and 13 years in the mayor’s office.
We sat down with her this week to get her thoughts on what’s been and what’s next
Goodman: Oh my god this is so wonderful…of course, the beautiful Siegfried and Roy.
Huck: The mayor‘s office and the hallways outside of it are lined with pictures of the city’s history and the icons that have passed through it and the two icons who stayed.
Goodman: Of course we stop here the two of us.
Huck: What year was this? ’76.
What do you think when you see this picture?
Goodman: Oh, I’d like to be young again.”
Huck: Here she is as a teenager, May 1957.
She and her mom attending the friends of the national council of negro women luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
Goodman: So I was 18, the year I graduated high school.
Huck: The mayor says her parents instilled the idea of service early
Goodman: They expected us to follow and do something with our lives beyond me, my, my.
Huck: And as she packs up her office the mayor reflects on capping 25 years of a very public life with her husband Oscar.
What was your reaction when you saw this?
Goodman: I said oh don’t I wish!
Huck: And her own 13 year turn as mayor.
Goodman: I love this job, Oscar always said he was the happiest mayor in the universe, I understand why. It’s great to be mayor, there’s never a dull day or bad day until we have issues.
I have a history of what it was like, what the look was, what the people were like, and to see this growth, that’s the part, not to be part of that continuum, very tough.
Huck: Downtown has exploded under both Goodmans. Thriving nightlife, cultural spaces and new medical infrastructure but the mayor won’t call it her “legacy.”
Goodman: This is our legacy, those are our four children. I can’t believe it, they have children of their own.
They moved back here to live and they’re all professional and that’s me,
Huck: Look at you.
Goodman: That’s all I did, those were the days before really getting started.
Huck: The mayor says she looks forward to more time with her grandkids and maybe taking a cruise with Oscar…But you also get the sense she wouldn’t mind 4 more where she is.
If you weren’t term limited out would you say ’just one more term?
Goodman: Absolutely in a heartbeat. I can’t tell you about the support we had from the community, even in the hard times of October 1. And you look at the population growing and pulling together with such great pride and you know what?
Yes, yes, give me 4 more!
Huck: Mayor Goodman, thank you so much. Thank you.
The mayor is very positive on the City’s future, but one thing that concerns her is the continuing congestion on the California side of the I-15.
She says it’s not only choking off tourist traffic but commercial transportation of goods from the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbor into the rest of the country.
She’s been asking them to widen those lanes for 11 years but so far nothing substantial has happened.
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