Mayor Goodman is preparing to leave office after 13 years

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Two weeks from today, Mayor Carolyn Goodman will leave office and return to private life.

She has been time limited. 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 gosh this is so wonderful…of course, the beautiful Siegfried and Roy.

Huck: The mayor’s office and the corridors outside it are lined with pictures of the city’s history and the icons that have passed through it and the two icons that remain.

Goodman: Of course, the two of us stay here.

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 mother attend 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 on

Goodman: They expected us to follow and do something with our lives beyond me, mine, mine.

Huck: And as she packs up her office, the mayor is considering ending 25 years of a very public life with her husband Oscar.

What was your reaction when you saw this?

Goodman: I said oh, I don’t want to!

Huck: And her own 13-year term as mayor.

Goodman: I love this job, Oscar always said he was the luckiest mayor in the universe, I can see why. It’s great being mayor, there’s never a dull day or a bad day until we have problems.

I have a story of what it was like, what the look was like, what the people were like, and seeing this growth, that’s the part, not being 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, these are our four children. I can’t believe it, they have children of their own.

They moved back here to live and they are all professionals and I am,

Huck: Look at you.

Goodman: That was all I did, those were the days before I really started.

Huck: The mayor says she’s looking forward to more time with her grandkids and maybe taking a cruise with Oscar…But you also understand she wouldn’t mind 4 more where she is.

If you weren’t time limited you’d say “just one more period?

Goodman: Absolutely in a heartbeat. I cannot tell you the support we had from the community, even during the difficult time of October 1st. And you watch the population grow and shrink with so much pride and you know what?

Yes, yes, give me 4 more!

Huck: Mayor Goodman, thank you very much. Thanks.

The mayor is very positive about the city’s future, but one thing that worries her is the continued congestion on the California side of I-15.

She says it not only throttles tourist traffic but also the commercial transportation of goods from Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles to the rest of the country.

She has been asking them to widen the lanes for 11 years but so far nothing substantial has happened.