CARSON CITY, Nev. - A plan to put $750 million in public funds toward an NFL stadium that could house the Raiders in Las Vegas has cleared a second major vote in the Nevada Legislature, despite opposition to a project partly funded by billionaire Sheldon Adelson and a last-minute revelation about associated infrastructure costs.
The Nevada Assembly voted 28-13 to pass a bill that would raise hotel taxes by up to 1.4 percentage points in the Las Vegas area to fund a convention center expansion and build a 65,000-seat domed stadium. The measure needed 28 votes to pass, and Republican leaders who were trying to round up sufficient votes called for a vote Friday morning before lawmakers could have any protracted discussion about the bill.
Despite the progress, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf remains steadfast in keeping the Raiders in the East Bay city.
"Today's vote in Nevada did not surprise us," she said. "It was what we were expecting and it does not distract our focus on doing our job, which is to develop a responsible, viable option for the Raiders to also consider staying in Oakland."
The measure still needs final approval from the Senate because it has minor amendments from the Assembly, but that's expected to be an easy hurdle. Senators already voted 16-5 on Tuesday to pass the original bill.
"It's exciting," said Andy Abboud, chief lobbyist for the casino mogul Adelson's Las Vegas Sands, after the surprise vote. "But this is really about jobs, and I think at the end of the day people saw this as a fantastic economic stimulus package."
Nine Democrats and four Republicans opposed the bill, which made unlikely allies out of people on the far left and far right of the political spectrum.
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The project was nearly derailed by a state report published late Thursday, which said the Nevada Department of Transportation wants to accelerate nearly $900 million in planned road work to accommodate stadium-related traffic. Lawmakers, who hadn't been warned about the estimate during routine discussions on the project, said they felt blindsided.
Transportation officials clarified that the projects were already planned and wouldn't require raising additional revenue.
Critics also decried the rushed deal, which is happening in an abbreviated special session rather than the four-month regular session next spring, and complained that the Legislature was applying new tax revenue to a stadium instead of reserving it to alleviate an anticipated state budget shortfall.
The public contribution will be larger in raw dollars than for any other NFL stadium, although the public's share of the costs _ 39 percent _ is smaller than for stadiums in cities of a similar size, such as Indianapolis, Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Critics pointed out that some outside economists, including Stanford professor and sports economist Roger Noll, have panned the deal as a boondoggle based on outlandish financial expectations.
Defenders of the stadium say Las Vegas' outsized tourism economy, with 150,000 hotel rooms and 42 million visitors each year, is different than other markets that are more dependent on locals.
"If we take the visitor component out of our economic impact model, it is negative,'' said economist Jeremy Aguero, who helped develop the deal. ``I do not disagree with the analyses that have been done ... It's inappropriately applied here.''
Proponents project 451,000 new visitors will come to Las Vegas as a result of the stadium, ushering in $620 million in economic impact. That's based on the stadium hosting 46 events, including 10 NFL games, 6 UNLV football games and a variety of concerts, sports and other events.
Laborers and veterans testified that they needed the estimated 25,000 construction jobs the project will bring after the industry was devastated in the recession. The stadium is expected to bring 14,000 permanent jobs to the Las Vegas area.
The total deal also sends $420 million for convention center improvements aimed at keeping Las Vegas' lucrative convention industry competitive.
The hotel bill for an average night at a Las Vegas Strip hotel would go up about $1.50 as a result.
NFL owners would still need to vote by a three-fourths majority to allow the Raiders to move from Oakland to Las Vegas.
