Editorial:
No regrets for protecting public money.
Las Vegas may someday regret offering nearly $1 billion in tax dollars to subsidize a football team with a historically wandering eye and on-field fortunes as cyclical as the Sin City economy. The National Football League may someday regret allowing a third franchise to relocate in a little more than a year. Raiders owner Mark Davis may someday regret having lost the home-field advantage that passionate fans delivered in the East Bay.
But neither Oakland nor Alameda County elected officials should have any regrets about their refusal to evict baseball’s Athletics or engage in a bidding war with public dollars to keep the Raiders in town.
Mayor Libby Schaaf held firm to her commitment to offer the Raiders a deal that would allow the construction of a new stadium on the Coliseum site without a taxpayer subsidy. The proposal by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and the Fortress Investment Group provided a plausible path for a $1.3 billion stadium — if only Davis had the business savvy and the community loyalty to pursue it. He had neither. For the past year, Davis has shunned all overtures from Schaaf and Lott while pursuing the easy money in Las Vegas. NFL headquarters helped run interference for Davis, scoffing at Oakland’s efforts to the very end.
Oakland fans were not the only ones to experience Davis’ ingratitude in the process. The Las Vegas move would never have gotten off the bench if not for Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who offered $650 million of his own money and helped shake down the Nevada Legislature for approval of $750 million in hotel-tax revenue toward the stadium.
But Adelson backed out after determining that Davis was “picking his pocket” with ever-mutating demands. Davis then secured a loan from Bank of America.
Nevada taxpayers may soon have their own questions about Davis’ trustworthiness. A revised estimate of the stadium construction cost is now $1.7 billion, not $1.9 billion — with no reduction of the taxpayers’ $750 million contribution. And taxpayers are projected to provide another $200 million in the years ahead.
There are worse fates for a city than losing a pro football team. Las Vegas has nearly a billion reasons to be apprehensive about the cost of winning one.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf stood tall against the NFL extortion game.