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Dynamite blasted caliche at the Raiders stadium site this week, days before Mark Davis finally caught the silver-and-black whale he chased for six years.
As the Raiders build a new foundation in Las Vegas while hiring Jon Gruden to patch their cracks in Oakland, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority meets Thursday with significantly less intrigue looming than in previous sessions.
The team’s development deal with Clark County is in place. Its joint-use stadium sharing agreement with UNLV continues toward approval. Land for the corporate headquarters and practice facility in Henderson could be purchased — at a major discount offered by the city — by next month.
Those documents all advanced near completion in just the past two weeks. That allows the stadium authority board to remain on track for a February deadline to ratify all of the outstanding documents needed to finance and construct the 65,000-seat stadium. That deadline already received a four-month extension from its original date after the Raiders could not finalize their construction contract with Mortenson and McCarthy until finding out the guaranteed maximum price of the stadium project. The price cap is needed for the Raiders to receive $650 million in loans from stadium financier Bank of America.
The board will consider the potential appointments of members to a benefits oversight committee from a community-generated list of nominees. That committee will monitor the implementation of the Raiders community benefits plan, as mandated by Senate Bill 1, which authorized $750 million of taxpayer funding for the $1.9 billion project.
The authority received nominations for the seven-member committee from the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Asian Chamber of Commerce, Urban Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Minority Contractors, Nevada Contractors Association, Women’s Business Enterprise Council, Western Region Minority Supplier Development Council, and Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Nevada.
The government will maintain a voting majority on the committee: one member will be appointed by the authority board, while the governor, state Senate majority leader and state Assembly speaker will select one person each. The Raiders will make three appointments.
While SB1 does not require the Raiders to receive authority approval of their benefits plan, the team reached agreement in principle with the board on the document’s major points at the December meeting.
Workforce hiring targets of women and minorities receiving 38 percent of total work hours in constructing the stadium and 55 percent of total work hours in operating it will be monitored by the committee. Mortenson and McCarthy will be responsible for collecting data from their subcontractors to ensure that hiring targets are met. Those reports will be made to the panel on a quarterly basis during construction, which is expected to last until July 2020.
The board meets at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Clark County Government Center.