Litigation related to the defunct Badlands golf course might again appear before the Nevada Supreme Court.

The Las Vegas City Council could vote Wednesday on whether to petition the state’s highest court to review one of the four cases against the city, according to this week’s meeting agenda.

Lower court judgments in that case have ballooned to just over $80 million for 17 acres of the defunct golf course near Alta Drive and Rampart Boulevard, court records show.

The cost includes nearly $48 million for “fair market value” of the land, more than $2 million in property taxes and attorney fees and nearly $30 million in back interest, court documents show.

Interest is accumulating at a daily rate of $21,121.53 until the $48 million is paid, records show.

The yearslong court battle began shortly after EHB Cos. bought the 250-acres golf course in 2015. The company, which is led by CEO Yohan Lowie, has argued that the city illegally “took” the property by not allowing the developer to exercise land-use entitlements and build homes on the property.

Judges in three of the lawsuits — one each for three of the four parcels Lowie had purchased — have agreed. The Nevada Supreme Court previously upheld a $64 million judgment in another one of the cases.

Meanwhile, city officials are bracing for a fallout that could exceed more than half a billion dollars if court opinions don’t shift, Las Vegas City Manager Mike Janssen wrote to staff earlier this summer.

“The cost to file the frivolous appeal is unjustifiable,” wrote EHB partner Vickie DeHart to council members in a letter shared with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The letter outlined the city’s losses in the previous Supreme Court decision for a 35-acre plot.

The city has began paying that $64 million judgment, earmarking $60 million from the 2024 fiscal year liability fund.

EHB argued in the letter that city attorneys have previously admitted that the case is “factually identical” to the one involving the 35 acres and that the Supreme Court could enter a summary judgment based on previous deliberations.

Both parties have expressed interest in settling the cases out of court, and an attorney for EHB said recently that talks appeared promising.

To offset accumulating costs, Janssen told staff that the city was exploring freezing open positions, and that officials were considering pausing projects and selling public land and properties.

The potential city liability of half a billion dollars would represent a quarter of the city’s total annual $2 billion budget.

A previous version of this story misattributed a statement that cases involving 17- and 35-acre portions of EHB’s property are “factually idential.” The statement was made in a filing by attorneys representing the city of Las Vegas.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

Cannizzaro said the proposed legislation will do several things. It will protect patients and providers of assisted reproductive technologies like IVF under state law, and make treatment more affordable by expanding insurance coverage. The price tag can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

According to the World Health Organization, one in six people is affected by infertility globally.

“As a mother of two myself, and soon to be in the next few days three wonderful little boys, I want to ensure all Nevadans in their reproductive years have the ability to start or grow their families regardless of income, gender identity, ethnicity, or sexual orientation,” Cannizzaro said.

According to the CDC, nearly 700 babies were born in Nevada with this type of assistance in 2021.

“I want to state very unequivocally and very clearly, this issue of infertility and access to those services should not be a politicized issue that places families at risk,” she said.

Earlier this summer, U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have established a federal right to IVF and other fertility treatments. On Thursday, former President Donald Trump said his administration would fund IVF treatments if re-elected but didn’t provide a specific plan.

A Texas judge’s decision to temporarily block a Biden administration program that offered a lifeline to legal residency for hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses didn’t exactly come as a surprise to Latino advocates in Nevada.

Instead, many of the attendees at an event hosted by the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road Nevada in Las Vegas last week said the ruling blocking the administration’s “parole in place” program was just the latest evidence that lasting immigration policy change would need to come from Congress and not executive action.

“The best way to get immigration reform done is through Congress,” said former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, who spoke at the event. “We have another opportunity in November for people to make their voices heard and let politicians know that immigration reform is important to them and to keep pushing them once they’re in office.”

Parole in place grants deportation protections for undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens and a potential pathway to citizenship. 

To qualify, applicants must have been married to a U.S. citizen prior to June 17, when the program was first announced. They must also not have a disqualifying criminal history (including all felonies and a number of other crimes, such as domestic violence and most drug offenses) and be able to prove they have lived continuously in the United States for at least 10 years. The federal government estimates that these noncitizens have resided in the U.S. for 23 years on average.

Parole in place promised to provide a lifeline for some members of Nevada’s undocumented community. According to an estimate by pro-immigration group FWD.us, 10,000 undocumented spouses in Nevada would be eligible for the program.

The federal judge’s ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by 16 Republican-led states challenging the Biden administration regarding the constitutionality of the program, charging that it bypassed Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for partisan purposes. 

The judge called the claims “substantial” and ordered a 14-day pause on the program approving new applications, though experts believe the pause could be extended. Immigrant families have already filed a countersuit. 

Erica Marquez, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and organizer with Make the Road Nevada, called the executive order creating the program “a breath of fresh air.” While the court-ordered pause was disappointing, she is encouraging people to continue to apply and to seek different pathways toward legal residency.

“I feel like the executive order could definitely be beneficial,” she said. “I feel like it’s kind of like  a Lego system. You just have to have the right pieces to put them in the right place.”  

Part of the problem is that any immigration policy changes being done through executive actions are much easier to block, Castro said in an interview with The Nevada Independent. As Congress has become increasingly unwilling to take up immigration bills, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have come to rely on executive actions that can be quickly blocked by a court or overturned by the next administration. 

Immigration is again one of the top issues for voters this election. Trump has pledged to deport millions of people not legally in the country, while his campaign has made Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in investigating border crossings a focal point of his attacks by labeling her as the administration’s “border czar” and blaming her for a surge in border crossings. 

Harris, who has pushed to pass a U.S. Senate bill that would stop processing asylum claims if migrant encounters reached a certain threshold, said she’ll take a “pragmatic” approach on immigration if elected. 

A recent poll from the media firm Entravision shows 44 percent of Nevada Latinos (a plurality) believe that Trump would “bring safety to our border and solve the immigration crisis.”

Yet despite recent setbacks, Marquez remains hopeful that positive immigration reform will come for undocumented people. 

“We’re not gonna quit. We’re not gonna go anywhere. Nothing is going to change anytime soon for us to go ahead and quit and put our hands down,” she said.