Weird that Fifteen Beacon, an ultra-toney boutique hotel and politicians’ hangout near Boston’s highfalutin Beacon Hill, has hired former Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. for public relations, sales and marketing. Cianci’s set to start the job May 30, after he gets out of prison in Fort Dix, NJ, where he was doing time for conviction on a charge of racketeering conspiracy.

Maybe not so weird. Cianci is known for reinventing himself—if not redemption. Seems he has a good side and a bad side. He also makes news.

Paul Roif, Fifteen Beacon’s owner and a Providence native, hired Cianci because, the Boston Globe reports, Roif was impressed by the way Cianci “cleaned up” Rhode Island’s largest city and capital. Cianci was mayor from 1974 to 1984, posting the city’s longest mayoral tenure. In the same era, Cianci also made news in connection with assaulting a man Cianci claimed was sleeping with Cianci’s wife.

When Cianci was reelected mayor in the ’90s, he won widespread acclaim for spurring the revitalization of downtown Providence. Now, he has a chance to remake himself again. He’s not quite out of the shadows yet, however. For the first two months of his job, he will wear an ankle bracelet and report to a halfway house where he’ll stay instead of at the hotel.

What’s interesting about accounts in the Globe and the Globe’s owner, the New York Times, is the different attitudes expressed. The Globe reports that several regular clients are outraged at reports of Cianci’s imminent new position, a response only encouraging the hotel to dig in its heels.

The Times, meanwhile, quotes liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee. The former Rhode Island senator calls Cianci’s imminent job “perfect symbolism—(Cianci’s) a man with just enormous ability to do good things counterweighted by another side that keeps getting him in trouble, working at a five-star hotel by day, but then paying his penance at night by going to a halfway house.”

Such buzz, and Cianci’s not even out of jail yet. Seems Fifteen Beacon does public relations very well.

Here’s an update on the nasty legal battle among members of the Carlson family. Lodging Hospitality Features Editor Carlo was in Paris last week to cover the Carlson Hotels worldwide conference. Here’s part of a dispatch he sent from the front lines:

“I can’t talk about family affairs,” Marilyn Carlson Nelson said at a May 8 press luncheon at EuroDisney, where Carlson Hotels is holding its first global conference.  A search committee is looking at both internal and external markets for a possible successor to her, she said. “My bias would be to have someone from the inside” be Carlson president, she added, noting she “will stay until we find the right person.” Then she’ll step down as president to be chairman of the board.

“It seems like a wonderful time to be handing this off to someone who can bring it to new heights,” Carlson Nelson said, adding she hopes the role change will be in effect when Carlson holds its next conference in Las Vegas in 2008.”

Most days, I envy the super-rich. Today isn’t one of them. I read a disturbing story in the Minneapolis newspaper (www.startribune.com) about the terrible family feud going on in the house of Carlson. Curtis Carlson, grandson of company founder Curt Carlson and son of current CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson, recently filed a lawsuit against the company and his mother, alleging that she reneged on a promise that he would succeed her as chief of the multi-billion-dollar hospitality, foodservice, travel and marketing company. Marilyn, 67, originally was set to retire two years ago, and many in the industry assumed Curtis would succeed her. The 43-year-old joined the company in 1989 and worked his way up to president of operations until the company board fired him last year.

Now in a countersuit, the company and board claims Curtis failed, as he promised, to remain “clean and sober” during a leave of absence from the company in 2003. Curtis has had health problems for years, culminating in a liver transplant in 2000. He admits his alcoholism and dependence on prescription drugs but argues that he’s capable to take the CEO job as he was promised.

According to the court filings, he’s received multi-million-dollar severance payments following his termination and presumably holds a big chunk of ownership of the private company. Yet, as we all know but seldom think about, there’s more to life than money. All of us with healthy and happy family relationships should take a lesson from this sordid tale.

Sorry to hear that David Trumble has resigned as director of public relations from Best Western International, where he spent seven years. That means he won’t be involved in handling the media when the Best Western board and CEO David Kong, who recently secured a contract extension, visit India toward the end of May. They’re going there to formalize a master franchise agreement for that country, where Best Western aims to develop hotels.

Trumble always has been a straight shooter and expert facilitator. Not only can you take him at his word, whenever the press needed access to Best Western executives, Trumble was always there to help. Who succeeds him remains to be seen; that largely will be up to Trumble’s former boss, Marketing SVP Dorothy Dowling (and the board and Kong, of course).

Word is Trumble quit over philosophical differences. What’s clear is he left without another job, resigning Thursday and clearing his desk on Friday. What’s also clear is he’s sure to land more work, particularly in a field as robust as hospitality is these days. We miss him, wish him the best—and hope we don’t miss him too long.