Golf course developer Bill Walters will now get to be a housing developer, thanks to the Las Vegas City Council, which granted his every wish at a meeting Wednesday.

Now there’s a big surprise.

Led by a near-fawning Mayor Oscar Goodman, the council voted 6-1 to lift a deed restriction on the land underneath the Royal Links golf course in the northeast part of town. The meager $7.2 million Walters paid the city for the favor means he got a great deal: 2005 land worth between $21 million and $28 million for 1999 prices.

Only Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian voted no, because of concerns about the taxpayers getting ripped off. But finding sweethearts upon whom to bestow deals tops every Goodman “Things To Do Today” list, and the rest of the council seems to agree. (Too harsh? Just ask Goodman to repeat what he’s said about loving to “play Monopoly with real money.” Yeah. Other people’s money.)

And it’s not just the difference in land prices taxpayers have to eat: Since the homes Walters proposes will be as close as 20 feet to the city’s sewage treatment plant, taxpayers will have to pony up an additional $5 million (at least) for odor control for the new residents of Walters development. (Let’s call it Sweetheart Heights, shall we?)

That $5 million should never have been needed, because Walters golf course was intended to be a permanent buffer between homes and the plant. That is, until Walters realized he could make more money building homes instead of repairing fairways and greens. (He’s done the golf course-to-subdivision thing before, too, out at Stallion Mountain.)

We at Various Things & Stuff are a hopeful lot. We’d like to believe that someday, the giveaways have to end. Someday, monied big donors like Walters won’t get everything they ask for at City Hall or the County Government Center. Someday developers won’t get tax breaks from a city so desperate for any construction, it’s willing to give away the store to an outlet mall or a closed-to-the-public furniture mart. Someday, money will be used to help homeless people get back on their feet and into housing rather than to paint taco stands, or to build softball fields instead of subsidize big-earning tennis tournaments.

We’d like to believe that, someday, the mayor would help the people who need it, rather than bestow municipal money on those who don’t.

Alas, that day is not today.

Speaking of Goodman, he took to the television interview program Nevada Newsmakers to suggest, among other things, that graffiti taggers should have their thumbs cut off, and that corporal punishment like whipping and caning be visited upon incorrigible youth. After a trial, of course.

“I’m dead serious,” he said. Yes, we know, mayor. That’s the problem.

University Regent Howard Rosenberg proved to be one of the few people who’s not transfixed by mayoral charisma. Goodman, he said, “should use his head for something other than a hat rack,” Rosenberg said.

Amen.

Our friend and colleague Jon Ralston has suggested Goodman wouldn’t want to run for governor, because he wouldn’t want to do the work associated with the job. We’d like to think the reverse is also true: The people wouldn’t want him to do the job, because he’s a goofball actor, just saying whatever outrageous thing comes to mind in order to get attention. We need to confine such people to circuses or cable TV interview shows where they belong, not in government offices where they can do real damage. By the time Goodman reaches the feces-hurling phase of his act, in fact, we’d like him as far from the public as possible, and behind glass, if it can be arranged.

And that phase seems to be approaching with all deliberate speed.