Newspaper embraces tax subsidized stadium plan

The reader of today’s Las Vegas newspaper can be excused for being a bit confused about the differences between a front page story and the paper’s editorial.

The front page outlines plans for financing a new $1.2 billion stadium near UNLV — with $780 million coming from tax money and $420 million from private investors, according to documentation from Las Vegas Sands Corp., which is owned largely by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who happens to also own the morning newspaper now.

On the editorial page — which has in the past urged extreme caution about plowing public funding into any stadium, whether for the minor league baseball team or for soccer downtown or for UNLV football — caution was thrown to the wind.

The editorial unabashedly declares, “Las Vegas desperately needs a new stadium.”

In print the editorial states that the “Adelson family would contribute an unspecified large portion of the financing for the stadium.”

Online it states that the “Adelson family would contribute an undisclosed share of about $420 million in private financing for the stadium” — a little ham-fisted updating was apparently going on, since only a third is hardly a large portion and $420 million hardly undisclosed.

Both conclude, “This stadium is an urgent need, and a better offer might never come along.”

Looks like Adelson has taken the wheel of this editorial page. It is his, he can drive it anywhere he wishes.

But asking the taxpayers to put gas in the tank is a bit much.

Stadium rendering courtesy of Las Vegas Sands via R-J.