There is a lot to dislike about this Hennepin Stadium deal.
Starting with the sneaky tactic of having Hennepin County Board do
it to avoid the requirement in the Mpls city charter for the voters to
approve a referendum, but to apply the costs only to Minneapolis rather
than all of Hennepin County.
Several people have mentioned the extra taxes on food & beverage
sales & hotel rooms downtown -- but I didn't see anything in the proposal
that restricts this to downtown. They just said food & beverage sales &
hotel rooms "in Minneapolis". Can someone point out somewhere in this
proposal that clearly states that you would not be paying this 'stadium
tax' when you buy coffee & a donut at your neighborhood bakery?
Then the parking revenue. Is the money siphoned off from the
downtown city parking ramps to pay for a stadium only going to be from
parking at stadium events? These ramps will be used more often by downtown
workers parking for their daily jobs than by stadium parkers, but I suspect
that part of the money from all users will go to a stadium.
Another batch of money comes from special taxes on rental
cars. That seems easy to legislate, since many of them are visitors and
don't vote here. But I understand that many (maybe most) car rentals are
not out-of-town visitors, but local taxpayers who rent a car while theirs
is being serviced. Nothing to do with a stadium, so why should they be
paying for the stadium?
I still say that if they are really going to have "the people who benefit
from a stadium pay for it", then there is no need for government
involvement at all -- the can do this one their own, without having to pass
any laws! Let the private owners of the teams, the concessions, the
parking lots around the stadium, etc. just add few dollars to their prices,
and dedicate the money to building a new stadium. No need for government
to get involved at all! They keep pushing for government involvement
because they aren't really going to pay for it with "user fees", they have
hidden taxes on the rest of us, like those listed above.
>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.
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