Signatures submitted for ballot initiatives targeting city hall project
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a showdown.
Culinary Local 226 on Thursday turned in more than 14,000 petition signatures challenging a new Las Vegas city hall and the city’s redevelopment plan, more than three times the 4,500 signatures that were needed.
Mayor Oscar Goodman, meanwhile, suggested the ballot measures for the June election, even if voter-approved, might not stop the new city hall plans. He contends there’s effectively a contract between the city and the would-be developers, Forest City and LiveWork Las Vegas.
He also promised legal and other challenges to the measures spearheaded by the union.
“There’s no question about it,” he said. “We’re not going to allow this to go unchallenged, that’s for darn sure. The public should know, no matter what happens with the referendum, we’re going to go ahead with these projects.”
The union gathered far more signatures than the number needed to put the measures on the June city election ballot. The Las Vegas city clerk’s office is now verifying them.
Goodman and the union have been slugging it out over the new city hall idea for a while now, with the union calling the idea — and other city-assisted redevelopment projects — wasteful and ineffective. The mayor blasts union leaders for standing in the way of something he says will bring jobs and progress. … (read more)