LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — It's one obstacle after another for the Oakland Athletics.
"Well, we got sued on Friday, I thought it was an April Fool's Day joke, but I guess the joke was on me," said Oakland Athletics' team president, Dave Kaval. "Now we have an additional nine months of deliberation that we're going to have to deal with before we can get the project approved."
This time, it's a lawsuit. The Oakland Stadium Alliance is suing the A's in California Superior Court.
"We know, they're challenging the certification of the environmental report. I mean, it's absolutely crazy that some of the largest polluters in the country can use an environmental law to try to stop our project," Kaval said. "It's something that we have to deal with in California. These are the challenges and the red tape that you have to go through to get approvals, and this is one of the key reasons that we have spent so much time in Southern Nevada and are working towards an option there."
With Oakland continuing to play hardball with the A's, Las Vegas remains a priority as the A's have five sites in mind.
"We just traded another offer last week. So we've been going back and forth on term sheets with the owners of the land or with the potential partners and making a lot of progress," Kaval said. "There's been a tremendous amount of negotiation in a positive way, and we hope to have a final one shortly here that we can announce and really move forward to the next stage."
As Las Vegas continues to cement itself as the entertainment sports capital of the world, Kaval says a decision on the site for a potential $1 billion stadium could come as early as next month.
"I think it could be kind of like more of like a May timeline," said Kaval. "So, hopefully we can hit that. It might depend a little bit on some of the negotiations, but it's certainly achievable. We're so far along."
