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Carol,
Thank you for your last posting explaining what the City Council does -- it
really clarified my understanding of Sandy Colvin Roy's vote on the 1999
stadium resolution.
After the residents of Minneapolis voted overwhelmingly to limit any City
funding of a stadium to $10 million without their further approval, stadium
supporters were looking for other ways to get public funding for a stadium.
In 1999 the proposal on the table was to use a Hennepin County sales tax to
fund a stadium in Minneapolis. So what could supporters of this proposal at
City Hall do? Carol, you made it very clear -- the resolution! -- "these
resolutions are the only things that have legal force for the City," is what
you said.
Please read the StarTribune article for more details:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1331/46379.html
City Councilmembers in support of this latest stadium proposal drafted the
resolution (according to you the only tool they had) to move forward with
this plan that would require sitting "down with our partners at Hennepin
County, the regional business community, and the State of Minnesota". Yes
Carol, we all understand that the City Council can't impose a Hennepin
County sales tax -- if that is the point you were trying to make I can only
say "well duh". The real question here is whether a Councilmember would
support a stadium plan that would include a regressive sales tax throughout
Hennepin County.
Like you said, "no trickery, just plain words". You also made it clear that
the votes are "not ambiguous", that "there is no standing on different sides
of an issue". I couldn't agree more. A vote Yes was to move ahead with the
plan, a vote No was to oppose it.
Sandy voted unambiguously YES.
Now if Sandy Colvin Roy was under the impression that she could vote to move
forward on this stadium proposal and then claim that on a technicality that
the resolution didn't mention the word "tax", she underestimates the
intelligence and diligence of the voters of the 12th ward.
Everyone else involved understood what that vote was about. The StarTribune
understood what the vote was about when they wrote "Friday's debate assumed
that any financing would include an additional half-cent sales tax increase
throughout Hennepin County". More importantly, Councilmembers that voted
unambiguously NO understood what the vote was about.
And, as Gene Martinez pointed out, why was the Council debating an amendment
to this very resolution that said that if a Hennepin County sales tax was
imposed to raise revenues for a stadium that some of that increased revenue
should be earmarked for affordable housing? And, why did Sandy vote against
this affordable housing amendment if there was no sales tax?
If Sandy Colvin Roy was opposed to a stadium funded by a regressive Hennepin
County sales tax she would have voted no. Period.
Sonja Dahl
Standish-Ericsson
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