Vikings Stadium Bill Narrowly Passes Tax Committee
The Vikings Stadium deal, along with a potential MLS team in the Twin Cities, is on its way to a full Senate vote on Sunday.
Like the divisive Senate Finance Committee meeting which passed on a 9-5 vote, so went the Tax Committee hearing. But in this case it was so close the committee voted by only one to forward the measure to the Senate floor.
Opponents tried to derail the bill as proponents, including bill author Senator Julie Rosen (R-Fairmont), did everything in their power to keep the stadium bill on track.
In the end, as often happens in politics, a deal was struck where Canterbury Park racing track dropped its push for Racino which Cambridge Republican Sean Nienow had placed into the bill to derail it. Nienow had also tried to kill the bill by eliminating the Vikings’ opportunity to start a Major League Soccer team that would play at the new stadium.
Canterbury struck an agreement with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to support the race track’s next attempt to expand card room operations. The racino amendment was then stricken in the Tax Committee on a 10-3 vote.
As one distraction seemed to dissipate, another appeared as the tax committee shifted to either derail or rethink the structure of revenues for the stadium. Users fees at the new stadium were discussed and eventually decided were “unreliable” or “incomplete”. The committee voted down the user fee amendment 7-6.
The stadium bill, which Sen. Rosen says she believes has enough votes to pass, is expected to hit the floor for a senate vote late on Sunday.
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So what name will the Crew have when they move.
Good Luck subsidizing billionaires/millionaires in Minnesota. Don’t fall for the economic development scam. Read the book: Major League Losers/Rosentraub.
The chambers of the MN House of Representatives is uniquely and intentionally positioned in the MN State Capitol Building so it looks out toward the front of the building–a building for all Minnesotans. It was situated this way as a symbol that the House Chambers are really the “People’s House.” From the Speaker’s Rostrum, the thought goes, the Speaker of the MN House of Representatives is the voice for the People of MN, and is able to “see” the people.
We need calls and e-mails to Speaker Zellers’ office to show support and encouragement to exercise some leadership on the stadium issue. While the Speaker of the MN House is a representative and has constituents in his district, his “leadership” position requires his to be the voice for the PEOPLE. We want a stadium, so please sir, exercise some leadership and get the job done! I am sick and tired of your delay tactics!!!
Actually, Minnesota has had very good results subsidising sports billionaires/millionaires and has done so for over 50 years. Do you realize that every major professional sports venue this state has ever had, with the exception of the Target Center, was built by or with the financial aid of State, County and City Governments? And the city of Minneapolis bought Target Center about five years after it was built by the original owners of the Timberwolves. And yet, Minnesota routinely ranks near the top of the nation in all sorts of “quality of life” catagories, including education, health, infrastructure, economic stability, etc. and has for over half a century. And professional sports has directly and indirectly contributed to that quality of life. Go pedal your inflexable politically extremist views somewhere else. :p
Jk on that last sentence.