A judge on Monday sided against one of Nevada’s largest teachers unions in what could be the opening salvo of a legal battle over the Oakland A’s plan for a new ballpark in Las Vegas.
The union is seeking to force a referendum on nearly a third of the state’s $380 million spending package for the A’s stadium onto next November’s election ballot, but Nev. Judge James Russell ruled that the group’s petition is confusingly written and incomplete.
Monday’s hearing could be the first of more battles to come over the A’s desired move to Las Vegas. A particularly impactful milestone, the MLB owners’ vote on the team’s proposed relocation, is expected to take place next week.
While union officials said Monday’s decision is only a temporary setback to the larger anti-ballpark movement — dubbed “schools over stadiums” — they may soon find themselves in a race against time to gather enough petition signatures to compel a 2024 ballot referendum.
“Their goal is to fight us on this in court every step of the way,” Alex Marks, a spokesperson for the teachers union, said of the referendum opponents who brought the legal challenge.
Those opponents, lobbyists Thomas Morley and Danny Thompson, have strong ties to the A’s, with clients that include construction unions known to strongly support building the proposed 33,000-seat ballpark on the Vegas strip.
Morley also represents the Las Vegas Review-Journal, one of Nevada’s largest newspapers. He declined to comment ahead of Monday’s hearing.
Judge Russell sided with the lobbyists’ argument that the teachers union improperly omitted large portions of Senate Bill 1 — the $380 million public spending package for a Vegas ballpark — from its petition for a referendum, calling for heavy revisions.
But the judge did not shoot down the union’s efforts to selectively target just $120 million of the overall bill, money that could be withdrawn at any time because it comes from Clark County-issued bonds.
Union officials believe that’s all it would take to stop the A’s stadium development in its tracks.
“This whole (development) is a house of cards built on conflicts of interest,” Marks said. “There are so many unknowns: We don’t have actual renderings, we don’t have MLB approval yet, we don’t have John Fisher’s private financing plan. That’s a lot of stuff you need to know to build a stadium.”
The teachers union will need more than 25,000 signatures from each of Nevada’s four congressional districts, and don’t see that as a particularly challenging feat. The signatures must be turned in to each district by next summer.
There were 14 petitions for ballot referendums in Nevada last year, but only one made it to voters, largely because the others didn’t receive enough verifiable signatures.
The A’s have invested heavily in winning support from Nevada’s legislators, registering 18 lobbyists with the state, including team President Dave Kaval, according to records.
The approach worked: Gov. Joe Lombardo signed SB 1 in June after the legislature approved a version of it that guarantees numerous benefits to Clark County residents.
If the union is successful in putting the spending bill into the hands of voters, then the A’s will have a much larger group of people to convince that building a new home for the A’s is worth the investment.
“California is known for voting down these initiatives, whereas other states tend to be more likely to approve them,” said Nola Agha, a University of San Francisco sports economist who has written academic criticisms of the A’s previous ballpark proposal at the Oakland port.
Back in Oakland, city officials on Tuesday will likely pass a resolution — following a news conference by Mayor Sheng Thao — urging the owners to agree that the A’s remain, given the city raised $400 million in grants and other outside money to support the planned stadium at Howard Terminal.
With much of the A’s faithful following the legal battles unfolding in Nevada, one superfan in Oakland is adamant he would not want existing taxpayer money spent on the A’s at the expense of local education.
“We believe billionaires should fund their own stadiums, especially when it affects the school system over there in Nevada,” said Jorge Leon, a member of the Oakland 68s fan club. “These teams should be a community staple.”