After listening to presentations at the State Capitol today before the Joint Task Force on Stadiums or whatever it is called, I think the hand wringing on this list will prove to be a moot point.
If the Twins stay in Minnesota and someone helps them build a stadium I'm betting it will be in St.Paul. The Minneapolis delegation was pretty pathetic. The Mayor and Council President made their remarks and turned it over to Paul Ostrow and R.T. Rybak. R.T. Rybak is not Norm Coleman. Some might think that a good thing. R.T. said to the committee at one point, "I gotta tell you, I'm not too excited about spending money on a stadium" or words to that effect. Hey, I gotta tell you, if I were a legislator I would not be too excited about helping the city with bonding authority. One legislator was wondering if the Minneapolis folks were just wasting their time? Another legislator asked if the Mpls. legislators were on board? Minneapolis' whole argument seemed to be "we've got the best spot for a stadium what with parking ramps, access roads, light rail and possibly the Northstar commuter rail terminus, plus the soon to be popular Bock E., and all those bars and restaurants. What seemed to be missing on the part of Minneapolis leaders was chutzpah and passion, qualities Norm seems to have in spades. He also never had Jim Niland on his City Council to put before the voters a referendum prohibiting the city from spending any more than $10 million toward a baseball stadium. Better he should have had the referendum pertain to Target and stupid entertainment complexes!!!!! But hey, maybe it's O.K. Saint Paul is a lovely city and it might be nice to take the bus over on a summer night for a big league baseball game. The probllem is that so much of Minneapolis' recent development including an expanded convention center, Block E, new hotels at the Depot, downtown housing, and all the tax increment financed projects, etc are predicated upon the assumption sports teams will be in or close to downtown Minneapolis. Sports may not provide a great economic upswing but I'm not sure that their absence won't prove to have a deleterious economic impact. Tim Connolly Ward 7 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1 _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
