» Let’s see if we have this right: Rick Rizzolo runs a tax-evading criminal enterprise in the form of the Crazy Horse Too. The business routinely bilks suckers out of money, and roughs them up when they refuse to pay. In the most famous of these cases, they broke a man’s neck and paralyzed him for life.

But we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because the City Council finally woke up, located a matching set of balls and yanked his liquor license, costing him millions? Please. We think a sentence of one year in prison is far too light for the likes of Rizzolo, even if the government has forced him out of the topless club business for life.

We’ll save our sympathy for Rizzolo’s victims, thank you very much.

» Mayor Oscar Goodman says he wants more than the 86 percent of the vote he garnered in his 2003 re-election campaign. He filed for his third and final term on Tuesday. Or is it his final term? Goodman has mused aloud that he might want to repeat Long Beach, Calif., Mayor Beverly O’Neill’s strategy to defeat a two-term limit by means of a write-in campaign.

As far as we’re concerned, term limits are stupid. Voters here have turned out a whole bunch of politicians they thought unethical or otherwise unfit for office, all while waiting for the state’s term limit law to kick in. We say Goodman should be able to run for office as many terms as he wants, and let the voters decide.

But we think it would be even better if Goodman were to run as mayor of a consolidated government, with city and county under one roof. A full-time, nine or 11-member Board of Supervisors would serve as the legislative branch, while Goodman (or whomever got elected countywide) would serve as a strong-mayor, full-time chief executive. All city departments would be consolidated, including fire, parks, clerks, aviation, streets and sanitation, transportation, etc. We could do away with the Regional Transportation Commission (like they’re doing anything anyway), Regional Flood Control District and the like, since those services would be overseen by our full-time board. The Metro Police department could come under the new government, too. In the long run, we’d save money and get more done.

Of course, the Legislature would have to act before that could happen. We wonder if anybody will bring it up as a serious topic of discussion? Anybody for the City and County of Las Vegas?

» Yeah, yeah, the smoking ban is legal. Whatever. We’re waiting for the appeal.

A member of the media bitching about how public officials don’t respect members of the media is about as common as a celebrity entering rehab. (Good luck, Lindsay!) But it’s time somebody got Gov. Jim Gibbons the memo about dealing the with the media.

That memo says this: Yes, they may be a pain in the gubernatorial ass sometimes. But it’s not really an option: You have to talk to them.

We all know how Gibbons left the Assembly chambers after his State of the State speech on Monday without answering reporter’s questions. (He even told Molly Ball of the Review-Journal he’d answer her queries "in a minute," before making his getaway.)

But now, the Las Vegas Sun reports, he went AWOL on Tuesday, too, along with his press staff. What’s up with that?

And no, you can’t blame it on all the energy that went in to producing this news release, describing in intimate detail the gown that first lady Dawn Gibbons will be wearing to the inaugural balls in Reno and Las Vegas. That was Ande Engleman, the former journalist who went to work as the first lady’s chief of staff and press person.

Now, it doesn’t mean that Gibbons is shunning the media entirely. We hear he’s scheduled to appear on Hardball with Chris Matthews on Friday. And since Gibbons will be down here in Las Vegas for the taping, we extended an invitation via e-mail for Gibbons to appear on our show on KTNV Channel 13, Political Insiders.

Gibbons’ press secretary, Melissa Subbotin, got back to us right away, to tell us Gibbons was all booked up for this trip. We replied, asking when the governor’s next visit to Southern Nevada might be. We haven’t heard back.

We know the temptation is to avoid the media, especially when it’s populated by pesky reporters and commentators constantly questioning, analyzing, quoting, and otherwise scrutinizing your agenda. (The Sun alone ran two front-page stories today raising questions about the education and energy components of the governor’s State of the State message, not to mention some analysis from my colleague Jon Ralston. And we at Various Things & Stuff haven’t exactly been members of the "Gibbons Ground Team" in our critical comments about the governor’s agenda.)

But that temptation is always the worst idea. If you hide, reporters (and their readers) will conclude that you have something to hide. If you dodge them, they won’t stop writing about you. They’ll just do it without your perspective in their stories. It’s simply the way the media works, especially in a 24-hour news cycle. Any consultant, any press secretary, anybody who advises any elected official — much less the governor! — to dodge reporters is guilty of giving very bad advice.

Although Mayor Oscar Goodman has been absent from his news conferences of late, and occasionally walks out of the gatherings in disgust, one of the things we’ve always liked about him is that he shows up and takes the heat. He uses his sessions with the media to talk about his agenda, and then fields questions that are sometimes obviously hostile. (They’re far more hostile that what Gibbbons could expect, that’s for sure.) But he does it anyway.

Even President George W. Bush, no fan of the press, has held his share of sessions with reporters, although not as many as some previous chief executives.

Our point: If Bush and Goodman can do it, so can Gibbons. It might take patience, preparation and a willingness to develop a thick skin, but it’s simply a necessary part of being the elected leader of the state of Nevada.

Hiding always makes it worse, Mr. Governor. So come out of the shadows and meet the press, why don’t you? We promise it won’t hurt. Much.