There have been a number of excellent posts surrounding issues related to Stadium financing that I wanted to respond to. Unfortunately I emptied my mail box so I will have to go off memory.
If we can be creative with stadium finance why can't we get creative with eduational funding? Excellent question, and while I agree we need to figure out how to better fund education, the bottom line is that education does not produce the revenue streams needed to pay off financing that a stadium could. Unless you want to sell the naming rights to our schools (Old Navy Middle School anyone?), education funding is going to have to come from either property taxes, income taxes, sales tax, user fees, or some combination. Does the stadium funding scheme weaving its way through the legistlature have money for a roof? I'm not sure. I thought the $335 Mil was more than enough needed to build a roofless stadium but probably not enough to build a roof. If it's not enough for a roof, I'm sure the Twins will be looking for a handout. Baseball economics are sick and a new stadium will not change the fact that the Twins are a small market team and will need new subsidies in the future. The absurdity of paying a shortshop $20 mil to play baseball is apparent to everyone. Unfortunately this argument reminds me of those French existentialists who talk about the absurdity of man and the meaninglessness of life in the face of our seemingly minimal place in the universe. Well you may be right but that doesn't help me deal with the here and now. The fact is that contraction is very real and if it wasn't for a plucky Hennepin County judge, we'd be watching Cristian Guzman hitting triples for the Detroit Tigers. Furthermore if the Twins don't have a new stadium in place they will be gone next year. By financing a new stadium we reserve a place at the table to demand changes to baseball's economic structure. By providing only a small percentage of public dollars to the stadium we are demonstrating that there are alternatives to massive public subsidies (most new stadiums have between 80 and 95 percent public assistance). Hopefully with a new stadium and a new ownership the Twins can band with other similar teams and change baseball's structure so that we won't be placed in this predicament again. Am I convinced that this will happen? No. But I'm optimistic that it can and I am convinced that without a new stadium we will be in no position to make sure those changes do happen. Dean E. Carlson East Harriet, Ward 10 _______________________________________ 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
