Stadium plan is a ridiculous idea

John Henry Brebbia, Henderson

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

When will the administration at UNLV and the other people of influence in this town understand how offensive it is to a lot of the locals to wake up to a headline shouting “UNLV promotes stadium plan”?

I’ve lived in this town for 29 years and this kind of hubris still amazes me. For the university’s part, the members of the administration backing this plan should be ashamed. Don’t they realize what it sounds like proposing to spend $800 million in taxpayer money on a “mega-events” center while complaining about the negative effect the austerity diet imposed by the Legislature has had on the ability of UNLV to properly serve the community? It is nothing short of shameful of them to shill for developers who seem to think “the larger the project, the easier it will be to sell to the public.” I suppose this is based on the theory that the lack of something this grandiose is hurting Las Vegas’ image.

I’m guessing that every funding source the developer approached with this ill-advised scheme found it too risky to consider. Why then should our elected representatives be so dumb as to consider making the developers rich at the taxpayers’ expense? Aren’t they aware that “build it and they will come” was only a movie? Where will it all end?