by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current
The Nevada State Assembly is scheduled on Tuesday to hear presentations for a proposed $380 million public assistance package for the Oakland A’s — despite the bill itself having not yet cleared the Senate.
Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager in a Twitter thread Monday night said Tuesday’s “informational hearing” on the proposal will allow members to ask questions about Senate Bill 1, which is currently stalled in the upper chamber as skeptical senators await amendments. Like the Senate did, the Assembly plans to conduct a “committee of the whole” wherein all its members participate. There are 42 members of the Assembly — 28 Democrats and 14 Republicans.
The Assembly will not be able to take formal action on SB1 unless the Senate approves it, which as of late Monday did not seem inevitable. However, conducting the informational hearing may make SB1’s path to an eager governor’s desk faster once or if it gets the 11 votes needed to pass the Senate.
The Senate committee hearing on the proposed ballpark last Wednesday raised myriad concerns, including the questionable attendance assumptions used to justify the stadium’s price tag, the lack of any codified “community benefits” by the A’s organization, an attachment to a new county fund designed to “diminish the incidence of homelessness” around the Strip, the quality of the permanent jobs being created versus the workers displaced by the closing of the casino currently occupying the proposed site, and the tax incentives that exist beyond the formally acknowledged $380 million in public funding.
That acknowledged $380 million consists of up to $180 million in transferable tax credits issued by the state, $120 million in Clark County-issued bonds, and a $25 million credit from the county toward development costs. But the new 9-acre stadium would also be exempt from paying property tax (because it would be transferred to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority) and A’s games would be exempt from the live entertainment tax assessed on tickets (because major league pro sports are exempt). Those two exemptions bring up the true value for the A’s owner John Fisher, the reticent billionaire heir to Gap known for not investing in his team.
Some of those concerns are expected to be addressed in a not-yet-introduced amendment.
Since last Wednesday’s hearing, no public progress has been made on the ballpark bill. The Nevada State Legislature is exempt from open meeting laws, so caucuses meet with bill proponents behind closed doors to negotiate deals that secure the votes needed for the bill to pass.
Monday marked the stadium special session’s sixth day, of potentially 20 days permitted by the state constitution. Most special sessions run significantly shorter than the time allowed, according to the Research Division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau. In 2016, the special session to approve the $750 million in public subsidies for what would become Allegiant Stadium lasted five days. In 2015, the special session around tax incentives for Faraday Future lasted four days. And in 2014, the special session for Tesla’s $1.3 billion sweetheart deal lasted just two days.
Yeager in a lengthy tweet thread after adjourning the legislature for a three-day weekend said he’d advised Gov. Joe Lombardo that convening a special session was a bad idea. The governor sponsored the A’s stadium bill during this year’s regular special session but it failed to advance. He called the stadium special session last week, directly after the conclusion of a different special session to pass a key budget bill that failed to pass during the regular session.
Lombardo in his proclamation calling for the special session did not address why the ballpark needed to be approved in June rather than late summer, as recommended by Yeager and other legislative leaders.
The Oakland A’s current lease at the aging Coliseum ends next year.
