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A group of educators wants to stop all activity toward an A’s stadium in Las Vegas until their lawsuit gets a final grade.
The Nevada State Education Association is preparing to file an injunction to stop funding from being administered by the state of Nevada until a decision has been rendered on its lawsuit to strike down the bill providing public funds for the stadium.
“When it looks like there may be action coming at the Stadium Authority, we will likely at that point file our motion for an injunction,” Chris Daly, NSEA deputy executive director of government relations, tells Front Office Sports, explaining that “the injunction would be us asking the court to physically stop the project from moving forward.”
The NSEA is suing to have Senate Bill 1, the law that dispenses $380 million to the Oakland A’s to build a stadium at the site of the Tropicana lot on the Las Vegas Strip, overturned because it is unconstitutional. The injunction filing would be based on the premise that the lawsuit has a plausible path to victory, and that allowing the state to go forward while the suit is still pending judgment would cause “irreparable harm.”
That harm could come from the state making contractual or legal obligations toward building a stadium, such as compelling Clark County to issue bonds.
The injunction has not been filed yet. Daly explained that the NSEA is monitoring the situation for prior steps that must come first, per the language of SB1, including A’s owner John Fisher, securing funding, putting up part of the money for the stadium, and producing stadium renderings.
“We’re not relying on John Fisher’s ineptitude to kill this deal,” says Daly, speaking at the fan-produced Oakland A’s Fans Fest on Saturday. “It doesn’t hurt. When we finally kill the Tropicana stadium deal, it will be a combination of these Oakland A’s fans, our efforts at Schools Over Stadiums and Strong Public Schools, and John Fisher’s ineptitude.”
Daly also works with Schools Over Stadiums, which is running a campaign in parallel to the NSEA’s lawsuit to put a referendum on the November ballot to overturn SB1.
While some have cast doubt on whether the teacher-backed group will be able to secure the required 102,362 signatures by June 26, Daly says he is “absolutely” confident that the effort will succeed, provided that courts allow at least 10 weeks to gather signatures. Collection efforts are on hold while the group negotiates in court over referendum language.
