Pricey ‘theme park’ bill bobs up again, then is sunk

Wednesday, June 6, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The so-called theme park bill, legislation written so broadly that casinos, theme parks, malls, car dealerships - whatever - could have set up business without paying state or local taxes, made a comeback late Monday.

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, had proposed Assembly Bill 598, saying the idea came from friends, including former UNLV basketball standout Jackie Robinson.

The idea behind it, he said, was to build a sports arena. But the bill was written too broadly, in the view of many lobbyists and lawmakers, Republican and Democrat. They thought it would create sovereign nations of sorts with in Nevada and end up costing the state a lot of money.

The bill would allow creation of theme-park districts overseen by quasi-independent governing boards. Businesses operating in a district would not pay state or local taxes, although a governing board could assess them fees to pay off loans to build an arena - if an arena were part of the plan for a particular district.

The bill passed the Assembly 33-8 in a late-night session two weeks ago, but that was before legislators fully understood its scope. In the final two days of the session, lobbyists close to Arberry reworked the language to try to make it more palatable.

Sources said they thought they had crafted something that would work - a bill that allowed for the creation of an entertainment district using tax incentives. That rewritten bill, however, never made it onto paper as formal legislation.

Instead, for reasons that remained unclear Tuesday, the original version came to the Senate Government Affairs Committee late Monday . The committee then sent it to the Assembly floor without recommendation.

Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, ended its journey by putting it on the desk of the Senate secretary, where it sat as the clock ran out on the 2007 session.