Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

LAS VEGAS CITY HALL:

Scramble is on for right to word questions — if they reach ballot

As the city’s Election Day approaches, the Las Vegas City Council is gearing up the machinery to bring to the ballot two questions it doesn’t want asked and is opposing as strenuously as possible.

At Wednesday’s semimonthly meeting, council members will address four matters related to the new city hall development and the city’s redevelopment agency, which has helped bring about the project.

Council members will be voting on whether to place two questions on the ballot, and on whom to appoint to the “ballot question committees” that will be weighing the pros and cons of both propositions and writing the language that appears on the ballot.

The ballot measures, sponsored by the Culinary Union, are:

• a proposal to mandate voter approval for future redevelopment agency projects and to prevent the agency from incurring more debt to support redevelopment projects;

• an initiative designed to stop the city hall project by requiring voter approval of “lease-purchase” construction projects.

Ordinarily, as long as the Culinary has done what’s necessary to place the questions on the ballot, the council would have to approve them for the ballot, even though the city is against the measures.

But at the last council meeting, City Attorney Brad Jerbic said he needed more time to craft his advice to the council — which means the city may be looking for a way to avoid putting the measures on the ballot.

Pilar Weiss, political director of the Culinary, said the purpose of the law is clear: Assuming the City Council doesn’t want to approve the measures outright, which of course it doesn’t, the council is obligated to place the measures on the ballot.

“It doesn’t look good for them to have been stalling,” Weiss said.

Jerbic, who in the past has declined to talk about the issue, could not be reached for comment.

Another council item, regarding whom to appoint to the ballot question committees, is important in the sense that both the project and its financing are complex — so how it is presented officially to voters could be key.

The language will include arguments in favor and against the measures, and short rebuttals to each side’s initial arguments. From one to three people are usually on such committees, though more have applied on both sides of each question.

Four Culinary officials — including Weiss, research director Chris Bohner, and union researchers Ken Liu and John Dana Wise — filed applications to be members of each committee in favor of the ballot measures.

Several have lined up to argue against the measures, including the director of the city’s Office of Business Development, Scott Adams, who has applied to write the argument against the initiative designed to stop the city hall project.

Others requesting to write the arguments against the redevelopment question include Richard Worthington of the Molasky Group; Rita Brandin of Newland Communities, which is developing Union Park for the city; and public policy consultant Teresa Murphy, who represents several businesses with the redevelopment district.

Worthington, Brandin and Murphy are all affiliated with the Downtown Las Vegas Alliance, a coalition of the area’s largest developers, casinos and other businesses.

Listed against both measures is Greg Esposito, business representative of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 525. That local is one of the construction unions that’s come out in support of the city hall project.

The price of that project is pegged at $150 million, but could run up to $267 million with additional construction costs. Critics say the city would be putting itself in far too much debt to finance such a project. They also say the city is unwilling to even try to make sure that developers provide workers with fair wages and benefits.

The city has countered that the overall deal will bring more than 13,000 jobs and billions of dollars in private investment into a struggling downtown. And Mayor Oscar Goodman has claimed the union is in the fight primarily to make sure that any downtown casino jobs be promised to union members.

The other items related to the city hall deal on Wednesday’s council agenda appear to be largely administrative. One asks the council to approve the City Clerk’s ruling that the Culinary obtained enough valid signatures to place the measures on the ballot.

And the council will consider — and then most assuredly reject — repealing the redevelopment agency’s latest plan. This item is on the agenda only because it is part of the referendum as a necessary step before putting the measure on the ballot.

In fact, many of these measures may, in the end, be for naught.

Goodman has threatened to take the Culinary to court to try to stop the ballot measures from ever seeing the light of day.

Goodman and Culinary honcho D. Taylor have met behind closed doors, it’s been reported, to try to prevent these ballot measures from even coming to pass. Though there are no indications such meetings have resumed in recent weeks, it’s clear that both sides could gain much by compromising before the voters have their say on June 2.

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