The teacher union-led group is seeking to repeal sections of the bill that pledge public funding for the project. The petition aims to repeal the use of state tax revenue to pay debt service on an estimated $120 million of Clark County bonds.
Those bonds are only one part of the deal between the Nevada State Legislature and the A’s. The state will also give the A’s $180 million in transferable tax credits. The petition only targets the state tax revenues, though, due to legal concerns over future development contracts the A’s may sign.
Directing public funds toward a stadium instead of Nevada’s education system was misguided, said Alexander Marks, director of strategy for the Nevada State Education Association, the teachers’ union backing the campaign.
“The Legislature didn’t hear a single bill to reduce class sizes. They didn’t have any movement on generating new revenue streams for our schools. Instead, the last two weeks of session were about a stadium,” he said. “They couldn’t get it done, so they called a special session, so for eight days, we watched them bend over backwards to try to give $380 million to California billionaire John Fisher.”
The group will now have to gather more than 102,000 signatures to get the referendum on the November 2024 ballot as long as no one files a suit claiming that it is illegal within 15 business days. Anyone can challenge the petition if they believe it has more than one subject or if its description is inaccurate.
Marks said they plan to use volunteers first to gather signatures and may hire a vendor to help with that process later on. The deadline to turn in the signatures is July 8, 2024.
Jose Davila IV is a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project.
