At 01:58 PM 2/19/02 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Without rehashing the merits of public financing for a Twins stadium, I have a couple of questions about the plan being unveiled today and apparently supported by a majority of the Hennepin County Commission. The plan envisions a $370 million stadium in downtown Minneapolis, funded $125 million by the Twins and $50 million by the private sector, leaving $195 million for government. I'll look forward to the details, but one Commissioner said on the radio this morning that the theory of the County financing is that the people who benefit from a stadium should pay for it. This includes an increase in the downtown food and beverage sales tax based on the premise that baseball fans who eat and drink before and after games should pay. ======================================================= EY: Lillihaug brings up a good point here. With the St Paul plan it's a 3% extra sales tax, and in Minneapolis this is the premise. I think this is a bad idea and unfair to the people who live and work in the downtown area. The idea that income tax paid by players should be dedicated to paying down the statium debt also seems like a nonsensical idea. I think most people -- given the opportunity -- would love to have their state taxes directed towards paying off their home mortgage or other loans.
The Strib article on the subject was also interesting because it said that Rybak and Ostrow's comments were that they were letting the county take the lead on this. This article appears to confirm what Mark Stenglein had told me before -- that Rybak was lobbying the county hard to come up with a stadium plan. Rybak had written me privately to deny that he had done this. This article suggests that Stenglein's story is more accurate that Rybak's. >According to a Steve Brandt article, more than 19,000 people live in downtown and 163,000 work downtown, according to figures from the Downtown Council. Does anyone have any figures on what downtown residents and workers spend on food unrelated to attending Twins games? Is it really fair to focus a stadium tax on the people who dine in their own neighborhood and on the workers who buy lunch in the skyways? EY: No it is not fair. It's also a bit disingenuous for the county to do this as a way to get around the Minneapolis referendum to limit city taxpayer subsidy for a stadium. The legislature, the county and the city have serious issues and budget cuts they need to deal with. All this time and energy focused on how to sell the public on funding the twins takes away from energy and time that should be spent on issues more directly related to the role of state, city and municipal government. Eva Eva Young Central _______________________________________ 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
