Oakland A's Las Vegas funding to be challenged in court next month

Schools Over Stadiums will get their day in court

Shortly after the funding bill for the Oakland A's ballpark project in Las Vegas passed last June, Schools Over Stadiums was formed to attempt to challenge that funding. SB1 is set to grant the team $380 million in public money, and certain sects of teachers in Nevada feel that the money should be used in other ways, like funding education. 

After filing a referendum petition on September 6, the group was met with opposition a few weeks later, with the A's attorney claiming to the Nevada Independent, "Collectively, material omissions and misstatements render it impossible for a potential signatory to make an informed decision whether to sign the Petition." 

Basically they felt that the submission left out some details for potential signees to make an informed decision. 

When they went to court over the matter, the judge sided with the team on November 8. Schools Over Stadiums has been trying to appeal that ruling for months, and on April 9, they're set to get that chance. 

Oral arguments are scheduled for April 9 following Schools Over Stadium's appeal of a judge's decision to reject the language of a proposed ballot referendum petition that would have repealed public funding for a new MLB stadium in Las Vegas. pic.twitter.com/OVAnDTvnJw

— Tabitha Mueller (@tabitha_mueller) March 11, 2024

This is the next step in the challenge to the public funding portion of the A's ballpark plan. If the original ruling is upheld, the teacher group has further plans for how to challenge the funding.

The first is the lawsuit they brought against Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo and others, declaring SB 1 unconstitutional in a number of areas that was filed in early February. They also plan to file for an injunction to stop the project from moving forward once there appears to be progress with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, per Front Office Sports. 

There's also the original idea, which is to collect signatures to get a referendum on the ballot in November. Even if they fail at the oral arguments, they can re-write their submission, fixing the mistakes that the court addresses, and then start the process of collecting signatures. They would need 102,586 split evenly between Nevada's four districts to be submitted by July 8 in order to land on the November ballot. 

If one of these avenues ends up stopping the public funding from going to John Fisher and the A's, then the team's relocation could get very interesting. All of a sudden Fisher would need to put in $1.3 billion for the ballpark project, with the other $200 million coming from debt financing. He would also be on the hook for any cost overruns with the project. 

Stripping the public funding seems like a long shot, but if it happens, the entire project could be thrown in jeopardy.