Petition challenging Vegas soccer stadium gets signatures with ease

Door after door, knock after knock, Denise Denning heard a lot of the same thing Saturday morning: Where do I sign?

She and a half-dozen others opposed to using taxpayer funds to help build a $200 million downtown soccer stadium made their way to Sun City Summerlin armed with clipboards and a few simple questions:

■ Do you support using tax dollars to pay for the stadium?

■ Would you like to see the issue on the June 2 municipal election ballot?

Stadium subsidy opponents need 2,306 signatures to put the controversial project up for a referendum.

Denning, active in Republican politics and no stranger to door knocking, managed to collect 10 of those autographs in a little over an hour Saturday morning, the first day out for signature gatherers.

She didn’t break for an early lunch.

Denning hung around on porches and knocked on car windows, patiently explaining the petition question and even converting a skeptic or two.

But most didn’t need a sales pitch. Only one declined to sign Denning’s petition, explaining she needed more time to think about the issue. Everyone else she talked with at least wanted to see the stadium go up for a vote.

One resident even flagged her down from across the street.

“I heard you guys would be out here,” said Greg Snyders, setting aside his yard work. “I think it’s too crowded down there (for a stadium). There’s no room; the traffic’s going to be horrible.

“I don’t think they’ll fill it. ... Based on what you see in other major league sports, who knows how much they’ll charge to get in?”

A deal approved by city leaders on Dec. 17 requires Las Vegas leaders to chip in $56.5 million toward construction of the 24,000-seat downtown stadium project.

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 the loud objections of City Council conservatives Bob Beers and Stavros Anthony.

Last week, the pair — along with fellow stadium subsidy opponent and Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian — filed a petition permitting them to gather signatures in support of a ballot initiative that would allow voters to kill the stadium.

Four city leaders — Bob Coffin, Steve Ross, Ricki Barlow and Mayor Carolyn Goodman, the same four who supported the publicly subsidized stadium plan — passed on a chance to put their own ballot question to voters last week, leaving the trio of council opponents to sign an affidavit triggering the ballot initiative signature drive.

Anti-stadium lobbyist Lisa Mayo, one of the five original affidavit signers, managed to collect eight Sun City signatures before lunch on Saturday morning.

Mayo, who runs a political consulting firm, has spent weeks canvassing nearby Summerlin neighborhoods in support of Councilmen Beers and Anthony.

She has a good feeling about the pair’s stadium petition, so long as they can rustle up enough volunteers to walk precincts.

Mayo has planted stacks of petitions in hair salons and restaurants throughout the northwest valley.

She has Tarkanian’s daughter, Amy, knocking on doors on the east side of town and Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman, R-Las Vegas, pounding the pavement in Assembly District 34. That’s in addition to dozens of union volunteers from Culinary Local 226, whose members have raised questions about how much stadium developers plan to pay their workers.

Mayo even joked about ginning up petition volunteers from the privately operated Meadows School, which Mayor Goodman founded.

Goodman, a fierce backer of the publicly subsidized stadium plan, has called the project a key to turning Las Vegas into a “world class city,” dismissing stadium opponents in Thursday’s State of the City address as mere “naysayers.” She says it will stimulate economic development in downtown.

With or without Meadows volunteers, Mayo didn’t have a hard time spreading the word Saturday morning, even winning a signature from a recent California transplant who swore up and down that Nevadans “don’t spend enough taxes.”

Most of her signatures came a lot easier.

“Can I sign it five times?” Zane Clark asked. “Retirees don’t want their money spent on things they don’t need and may not even happen.

“I love the public parks and things I see out here, but this (stadium) downtown looks like a big giveaway. ... I bet you it’ll be 80 percent ‘no’ on the stadium around here.”

Councilman Beers, who coordinated the Sun City petition campaign from the Smith’s grocery store parking lot at West Lake Mead and Rampart boulevards, has offered similar estimates of support for his petition in and around Ward 2, but he doesn’t plan to rest on his laurels.

Beers signed up six new canvassers in the course of a couple of hours Saturday.

He and other stadium opponents have only two weekends to collect the signatures needed to put the project on the ballot.

It’s still early, but Beers likes his chances.

“Stavros (Anthony) is going to come by around noon or 1 p.m. today,” he said Saturday. “The Culinary is out there and the petition is online, too, so people are fully capable of down­loading and signing it themselves. They don’t have to come out here.

“It’s the first morning and it’s just now just starting to warm up. I think we’ll get it done.”

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