Nevada locals halt A's dream Vegas move, challenge legality of $380 million stadium funding

Oakland Athletics' efforts to build a new stadium in Las Vegas have hit a roadblock after a report from The Athletic confirmed that a teachers' union from Nevada has moved to court to sue the state and Governor Joe Lombardo. The union will challenge the legal course of the funding that granted $380 million of public money for a new stadium in Las Vegas for the A's.

The lawsuit also reportedly includes the name of the state treasurer, Zach Conine, in an effort by the Nevada State Education Association to not allow the Athletics to carry out the infrastructure of a new stadium.

The efforts by the union initially aimed to bring the funding bill, also known as "SB1," to a public vote. However, the union lost the case back in November but an appeal is pending.

This time around, though, they are moving on to the technicality of the bill, which, according to the union, violates the constitution of the state.

One of the technical grounds of the suit is that in order for the bill to pass, it needed a two-thirds majority of the vote in Nevada’s Assembly and Senate, since that is how the state is intended to treat legislation that generates public revenue.

The lawsuit also reportedly argues SB1 fails to meet the obligation to give cost figures and that the state will unlawfully take in debts from Clark County, where Las Vegas is located.

The A's and the governor's office are reportedly yet to respond to these new developments.

Why is the union against the building of a new stadium for the Athletics?

NSEA, a group of teacher unions, is working under a political action committee called Schools over Stadiums. This lawsuit was filed on Monday by Strong Public Schools, another group backed by NSEA.

“This is around the A’s and (owner) John Fisher’s efforts to get the financing for the balance of the roughly $1.1 billion dollars that he needs to put together,” said Chris Daly, the NSEA’s deputy executive director for government relations.

“We’re doing everything we can to make the road harder for them. Because our ultimate goal is to fund Nevada schools, and we think SB1 and the stadium deal goes in the wrong direction.” [via The Athletic].

Even though the teachers' union brings this funding to a public vote, they will still need more than 100,000 signatures, which may require funding of around $1 million if that were to happen. Daly mentioned that the group will require significant funding for that and that too in a short span.

“We’re going to need institutional players to step up in order to help us qualify this,” Daly said. “Some of the (A’s) fan groups and some of the leaders seem committed to soldiering on and trying to raise a million dollars. And I say, ‘Thank you; I don’t want to tell you you can’t do it because you’ve done a lot of things that I have never seen before.’

“With that said, I’ve always known that we need more institutional players, probably from the Bay Area, to weigh in on our side.”

On the other hand, the Athletics hope to get the stadium ready by 2028 but it remains to be seen if the teachers union succeeds in their endeavor.