INTRO: Thursday Mayor Oscar Goodman will face a second round in front of the Nevada Commission on Ethics defending charges that he used his position as mayor to help his family. KNPR's Ky Plaskon reports on yesterday's hearings.
SOUND: TV Footage
PLASKON: Behind numerous guards and a metal detector, Mayor Oscar Goodman, Ethics Commissioners and witnesses watched un-narrated television footage of the Mayor, drinking from over-sized martini glasses and dancing like a showgirl two years ago promoting gin. He did it in exchange for tens of thousand of dollars to be donated to a private school his wife founded. And footage of Goodman answering questions about it.
GOODMAN: If anything there is a down side, she reaches into my pocket.
PLASKON: But that's not the only instance the ethics commission is investigating as to weather Goodman used his position as mayor to help his family. Late last year Goodman's campaign manager paid a company named IMedia to create a CD of interviews. That relationship blossomed into one where IMedia gave Goodman's son shares of stock in exchange for running a subsidiary company called IPolitics. The company invested 6-8 million dollars developing an interactive system to measure constituent opinions. President of IMedia, Scott Capp explains what it does.
CAPP: I can track your movement, I can see everything you do."
PLASKON: Goodman's son, Ross Goodman testified that he hastily prepared to officially present the product at the Conference of Mayors in January, but was unsuccessful. So the company spent 10-thousand dollars to host a cocktail party there to present the product. At the conference Mayor Oscar Goodman passed out invitations to mayors of other cities and then at the party encouraged them to take a look at his son's business product. Ethics Commissioner Jenkins asked Goodman's son Ross Goodman about the Mayor's influence there.
PLASKON: Why do you think initially people came to the party? ROSS GOODMAN: Because of my dad
PLASKON: The company IPolitics didn't gain any business from the event and has since gone out of business. But all is not lost. Ross Goodman's stock in IMedia, given to him in exchange for running IPolitics has since more than doubled in value. The ethics commission intends to decide today if Goodman is guilty of using his position as mayor to help his family.
Ky Plaskon, News 88-9, KNPR