Roundheels Central, led by Mayor Martini, has been the best vaudeville show in local government, offering the sweetest of deals to anyone from golf-course-turned-would-be-residential-developer Bill Walters to anyone who can provide a good song and dance about their downtown dreams. Some, like the Walters affair, get law enforcement sniffing around; others just have a malodorous scent so familiar it is often ignored.

But what makes the latest scheme the city rubber-stamped, albeit on a contentious and rare split vote, so pungent is that it was for a nonprofit group whose exclusive arrangement had expired and whose chief turned his nose up at a Request for Proposal process as well as showcasing all that is wrong with City Hall in a cavalcade of silly statements and pathetic posturing.

It was a sight to behold last week when the City Council debated whether to approve a development agreement with The Tapestry Group, which promised the city 2 1/2 years ago that it would ameliorate one of Las Vegas' truly pressing needs: affordable workforce housing.

The plan was to get the city, which had the ability under a public lands management law, to nominate a parcel to be used by the developer, whose principal is E. Gene Wilczewski. In this case, the land is at Tenaya Way and Westcliff Drive in the northwest, part of the ward represented by the council's refuse-to-go-along-to-get-along specialist, Lois Tarkanian.

The problem was that The Tapestry Group's exclusive agreement it had obtained also had expired early this year and so more action was needed. City staffers, strangely, provided no recommendation on the item, which Tarkanian refused to put on the agenda because of questions about Wilczewski's experience in actually building such projects. Wilczewski, though, had hired ex-Sen. Richard Bryan, coincidentally the author of the public lands act and coincidentally who goes way back with Mayor Oscar Goodman. Bryan rang up Goodman, who asked staff to put the item on the agenda for last week's meeting.

That's where the fun began as the city comics, led by His Honor, performed their shtick. Tarkanian raised all manner of questions about the developer and his experiences as well as raising the question of whether better-known locals might want to apply. Tarkanian did not unearth, though, that Wilczewski had once been placed on the federal government's Excluded Parties List, barring him from contracts with the Housing and Urban Development Department.

Wilczewski asserted in an interview this week that he was only tangential to the serious allegations made on the projects — one for bid-rigging and the other for financial misdeeds — and the Excluded Parties List's Web site indicates he was eventually reinstated. But he was not asked about that at the meeting — lucky for Bryan, who was surprised when I told him about it.

Some of the council members seemed taken aback when a discussion of putting the project out to bid came up. Bryan argued that the city had a "bird in the hand" and informed them that Wilczewski would not participate in an RFP. Why not?

"There are a lot of loose cannons out there," Wilczewski told the council. "We have a demand on our company ... We are not interested in wasting our time in taking a shot ... It takes a team, a lot of time and a lot of funds. It's philosophical."

Sounds like arrogance to me. At least.

But that didn't seem to bother the vaudevillians — or at least a majority of them, even after Tarkanian raised questions about how the item got on the agenda and whether the very fact Goodman had requested it influenced staffers.

His Honor seemed — emphasis on seemed — terribly aggrieved and wondered if Tarkanian was making "a suggestion I put pressure on staff ... That's the way I'm hearing it."

Of course she wasn't, as she explained. She was only pointing out that the mere fact that Goodman had asked for an item sent a signal. Goodman risibly said just because he asked for the item didn't mean he would support it and when Tarkanian commented on his implied power, His Honor retorted:

"I have no idea how powerful I am. My wife doesn't listen to me."

Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, then they won't pay attention to the issue.

Then, continuing his routine, Goodman wondered if staffers had told different stories to different members, declaring, "I wouldn't want another Billy Walters situation."

It must be amazing to go through life without shame. The reference there was to allegations at the time of the infamous Walters golf course deal that one attorney, John Redlein, had given negative briefings about Walters to some council members. Redlein was a true whistleblower but got demoted because he tried to blow the whistle as Goodman personally negotiated with his pal and former client Walters (ironically represented back then by Bryan).

And now Goodman invokes that incident as if he is outraged? A comic genius, he is.

Tarkanian tried to get the approval voted down, but it failed on a 4-3 vote. Then the same four members — Goodman, Gary Reese, Larry Brown and Steve Wolfson — all voted to give Wilczewski what he wanted.

"They need to be praised and complimented (for the vote)," Wilczewski, citing the dire need for workforce housing, said this week. He appears to have a sense of humor, too.

Goodman closed the item, which clearly had been more divisive and aggravating than he anticipated, by telling Bryan from the dais: "From now on, don't ask me to put a matter on the agenda."

Hilarious, isn't he?