Did anyone else receive in the mail a survey from
MnDOT regarding driving habits between St. Cloud and
Minneapolis?
If you did, please, please, please fill it out and
return it. Speaking as the partner of someone who
commutes to St. Cloud daily, the Northstar line cannot
come fast enough.
On a related note, the one thing that was lost in the
debate over the stadium was that the proposed transit
hub that was to be a component of that plan was, IMO,
the most valuable piece of the proposal. If an
acceptable stadium financing plan can be crafted,
transit needs to be a centerpiece. According to the
plans, the hub would link a proposed Northstar
commuter rail with existing LRT and the proposed
Central Corridor RT.
I think that the public good that could come from a
stadium and development at the Rapid Park site means
we should be looking for a less regressive and more
targeted way to pay for a stadium and associated
development. I am not a fan of the proposed 15 mill
tax. But why can't we do something to minimize the
impact on non-stadium users for the stadium portion of
this proposal? Something like:
* A surcharge on parking in the ramps that is captured
during Twins games
* Personal Seat Licenses for club seating
* Capturing the naming rights for the stadium
* A ticket surcharge above and beyond existing taxes
for a time period.
* A percentage of concession revenue that decreases
over time.
* Public money for the site improvements and the
transit hub.
* Publicly subsidized (as in low or no interest)
municipal or county bonds to be paid by the Twins (a
la the X.)
* A significant portion of the stadium costs paid by
the Twins.
I generally oppose public financing of sports stadia,
but I especially oppose the "simple" plan of Opat and
the Twins, since it's simplicity is borne on the backs
of non-users and users alike. Heck, I would be far
more likely to support a 5 mill sales tax if it were
supplemented by user generated revenue increases and
where public money is targeted and spent on
improvements that generate benefits for non-users. In
the rush for a "simple" plan, Opat and the Twins have
created a plan that places none of the burden on
direct users and all on residents of the county.
And to get back to the original point - transit is a
public good, the transit hub would be a significant
advance toward better public transit, and I would love
to see the Twins, Minneapolis and the county of
Hennepin craft a financing plan that has the public
pay for the portions of the project that generate the
most public good.
aaron klemz
cooper
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I am not sure what a revolution in the academy will look like, any more than I
know what a revolution in the society will look like. I doubt that it will take
the form of some great cataclysmic event. More likely, it will be a process,
with periods of tumult and of quiet, in which we will, here and there, by ones
and twos and tens, create pockets of concern inside old institutions,
transforming them from within. There is no great day of reckoning to work
toward. Rather, we must begin _now_ to liberate those patches of ground on
which we stand - to "vote" for a new world (as Thoreau suggested) with our
whole selves all the time, rather than in moments carefully selected by others."
- Howard Zinn, "The Uses of Scholarship"
Aaron Klemz, Minneapolis, Minnesota
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
__________________________________
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http://farechase.yahoo.com
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