"We're doing business for the city, and he's showing up in outfits that frankly were embarrassing. . . . Miniskirts and halter tops to a City Council meeting? Imagine that in Seattle or L.A.," Hector said. "When you're dressing, I'm sorry, like a $3 hooker, it's disrespectful to your community."
"He wanted no cleavage, no short skirts, no high heels," Rasmussen said, with a slight roll of the eyes. "He'd made his point; he'd won the game. So I just proceeded to ignore it."
Until he takes office in January, Rasmussen is focusing on drawing in patrons to his large, 1950s-style, 40-foot-screen cinema with full digital sound, which at the moment is "hemorrhaging cash." He is also trying to market a coin-operated multi-player trivia game he designed for bars and restaurants.
Much of the rest of the time he spends with his girlfriend of 35 years, Victoria Sage, whom he describes as "the light of my universe." (The two split briefly after the breast augmentation and wardrobe change. But Rasmussen, feeling he'd been "shot through the heart," managed to win her back.)
"She tolerates it nicely. She lets me be the pretty one," he said. "It's not her thing, but she's my biggest supporter, and she's a lovely woman."
Rasmussen already has earned Silverton a dubious measure of national notoriety among anti-homosexual activists. The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., known for its protests across the country targeting gays, plans to picket Monday in downtown Silverton "to speak some words of truth to this 60-year-old pervert," according to the church's website.
But in a part of the country where "small town" is often used as a synonym for redneck, Silverton appears inclined to let Stu and Victoria work out the details of their relationship as they please.
"He's got a lot of supporters in this town. He's super-available, and he's so sensible," said Brenda Marks, who helps run a downtown artists co-op gallery that recently sold a photo of Rasmussen decked out as Marilyn Monroe. "He's not an alarmist; he's not an extremist."
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kim.murphy@latimes.com
