At 11:24 AM 5/20/02 -0500, you wrote: >Here is a sports columnist take on the stadium bill. >http://www.startribune.com/stories/506/2846059.html >__ from the column:
4) Is supposedly intended to keep alive in Minnesota a game with no workable plan for fiscal sanity, incompetent leadership and clueless players who already are talking this week about setting a strike date for later this summer. Which, of course, could mean that by the time the big local referendum is held before Sept. 30 to raise needed funds through food, liquor and hotel taxes, voters would be asked to approve a ballpark for a game that does not exist. Hallelujah? The deal itself -- $120 million in cash up front from the owner, plus an estimated $400 million for upkeep over the course of the lease -- is classic CYB (Cover Your Butt) politics. With the contraction announcement by Bud Selig, and the improvement of the Twins on the field, the political powers clearly had detected in recent months a subtle, but favorable, shift in public interest in a new ballpark. ==================== EY: How much of that public interest was for taxpayer dollars going for this boondoggle. I sure don't see this sentiment from the voters I talk to. But the Twins hire lobbyists -- and spent the most in lobbying of anyone -- and they get return on investment. So they got return on investment. Barreiro continues: So what did they do? They did the gutless thing, of course. They passed a bill to say they could. Now, come election time, even if a new owner is not secured and the team evaporates, this will allow them to say: "See? We did what we could to save the team. Nobody can accuse us of walking away from the Twins." There were two other options that would have made far too much sense. The Legislature could have approved a deal that was truly workable, and given the Twins a legitimate chance to attract new ownership. Or it could have simply put up its hands and said: "No more. We are out of the business of working with an unmanageable business in any way, shape or form. If that means we lose the Twins, then so be it. We will no longer be the hand that, in one way or another, feeds this insanity." Instead, took the easy way out. They approved a deal that, in asking for an overall owners contribution of as much as $281 million, is going to be dismissed out of hand by most any would-be buyer. Once he stopped shaking hands and slapping people on the back, Bell almost admitted as much. ================== EY: The whole dang thing with Bell saying this was having the legislators say major league baseball was important was a red herring. Voting against state funding -- or financing (which just means putting the taxpayers at risk) does not equal being anti-twins. The columnist continues: Too bad, so sad, cried Rep. Tom Osthoff, DFL-St. Paul, far more concerned with sticking his tongue out at that evil big city to the west than seeing the big picture. Osthoff actually told the Star Tribune that "to hear Minneapolis say it's unfair is my greatest night in the Legislature." =================== Not unfair at all, I live in Minneapolis. I'd be glad to vote to raise any suburbs taxes to pay for this ballpark -- and they can stick it in the burbs too. If St Paul raises there sales tax 3 to 5 percent, well it won't be that much of a pain to avoid those bars and restaurants. ........ This should not be about childish intercity rivalries. Put me in the category that could not care less where, or even if, a new stadium goes up. And I hardly qualify as the No. 1 shill for Minneapolis, which in recent years has tended to react to the Twins' stadium crisis with all the smugness and aggressiveness of a Nyquil-chugging tortoise. ============================ EY: Maybe the folks in Minneapolis are smart enough to see that a Twins Stadium here benefits those who don't live here more than those who do. The city has better things to do, and hopefully Rybak will now come to his senses and focus on the real issues facing the city. Eva Eva Young Central Neighborhood Minneapolis _______________________________________ 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
