Vegas stadium petition gets 9,811 signatures; validity being tested

Las Vegas voters might get a chance to weigh in on using public money to build a controversial downtown soccer stadium, though they won’t know for sure until next week.

Stadium subsidy foes rounded up 9,811 signatures to put the issue to a public vote, according to a preliminary count by Clark County elections officials on Thursday.

That’s more than 1,500 autographs above the number needed to put the stadium on the June 2 municipal election ballot, though campaign consultants and ballot initiative supporters agree that up to 30 percent of those signatures could be thrown out during a county-led verification process expected to wrap up next week. To be valid, the signatures have to come from people who live in the city and are registered to vote there.

Stadium initative backers, including three sitting City Council members who helped orchestrate the petition drive hope that only around 15 percent of signatures will be tossed, allowing them to sneak just over a roughly 8,200-signature ballot threshold announced earlier this month.

Either way, they plan to keep up the ballot fight in District Court, where Judge Jerry Wiese is set to hear a lawsuit filed by opponents of the $200 million stadium’s financing plan on Feb. 4.

That suit, filed by Councilman and staunch stadium subsidy foe Bob Beers on Friday, seeks to knock some 6,000 signatures off the number City Hall says is needed to win a spot on the ballot.

An apparent error in the city clerk’s office saw initiative supporters scramble to come up with nearly four times the roughly 2,300 signatures city officials first said would be required to put the issue to voters.

That change, along with an eleventh hour shift in the petition signature filing deadline, were both announced within two weeks of the final signature tally.

Both moves figure to play prominently in upcoming legal wrangling over the issue.

Beers, who last week accused City Hall of deploying “egregious unfair play” in alleged efforts to stymie the stadium ballot initiative, said the city is still maneuvering to quash the stadium issue behind the scenes.

He said City Attorney and longtime ballot issue foil Brad Jerbic stepped in to have a fourth judge taken off his case Thursday. Three judges recused themselves for unrelated reasons earlier in the week, according to court filings.

“We’re now assigned to Judge Wiese, apparently you can give (the court) $500 and get a new judge,” Beers said. “It’s called a ‘pre-emptive removal.’ In this case, it will be paid for by the taxpayers.”

Jerbic said the city is exempt from such removal charges and didn’t pay a dime for the change. He said his office arranges such removals “all the time” and said they “don’t mean anything bad” for the petition effort. Jerbic declined to comment on the reasons behind the move.

A deal approved by city leaders on Dec. 17 requires Las Vegas leaders to chip in $56.5 million toward construction of the much-ballyhooed 24,000-seat downtown stadium project opposed by Beers and other petition backers.

That figure does not include the value of the 13-acre stadium parcel that would be given to stadium developers, land the city says could be worth up to $48 million.

The city plans to use $90 million in hotel room tax fees to hold up its end of the agreement — dollars that are currently set aside for city parks.

City leaders narrowly approved the deal over loud objections from City Council conservatives Beers and Stavros Anthony, who has since announced his candidacy for mayor.

Four city leaders — Bob Coffin, Steve Ross, Ricki Barlow and Mayor Goodman, the same four who supported the publicly subsidized stadium plan — passed on a chance to put their own ballot question to voters earlier this month.

Stadium subsidy foes kicked off their whirlwind signature gathering campaign three days later.

It remains unclear how much it might cost to bring that effort to court. Beers has said the move will be paid for by the Parks Protection Committee, an anti-stadium subsidy political advocacy group co-founded by himself, Anthony and Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian.

Beers, Anthony and County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani count as the group’s three top donors.

Giunchigliani lost her bid for Goodman’s seat in a 2011 rout. Beers is challenging U.S. Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid in 2016.

More than $20,000 pooled by the trio of elected leaders and a smattering of donations from private donors went toward last week’s hiring of Organized Karma LLC, a political consulting firm that sent out dozens of door-knockers to collect signatures in support of the stadium ballot initiative.

Contact James DeHaven at jdehaven@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3839. Follow him on Twitter: @JamesDeHaven.