keoadmin
01-30-2004, 12:46 AM
State of skepticism - Residents with stakes in the stadium debate express mixed feelings.
BY JIM RAGSDALE Pioneer Press Thu, Jan. 29, 2004
St. Paul Minnesota
Rick Wilder, owner of a popular gun club in Blaine, looked at the map of a proposed new Minnesota Vikings stadium in his neighborhood and made an interesting discovery.
The clay discs his customers train their shotguns on could one day be arcing toward thousands of tailgaters in purple.
"That's news to me,'' said Wilder, owner of the Metro Gun Club, where a 70,000-seat stadium complex could someday encroach on the woodsy fringe of suburbia.
The map, shown to him by a reporter, was presented to a state stadium task force this month by Blaine and Anoka County officials pushing for a Vikings stadium.
"They could incorporate us into the half-time show,'' quipped shooter Chuck Roepke of Blaine.
Welcome to Minnesota's debate over sports palaces, in which the vision of a gleaming arena crashes into reality on the ground. Recent interviews with citizens — from ardent fans to passionate opponents — suggest that while Minnesotans may wear the colors and enjoy their teams, they remain conflicted about kicking in tax dollars for games played by multimillionaires.
For nearly seven years, developers and owners and their lobbying armies have sketched pretty pictures, and people such as Wilder have learned not to expect bulldozers at their doors anytime soon.
"I have no problem with a stadium,'' said Larry Hammond of Ham Lake, a Vikings season-ticket holder who was sipping coffee with friends at the gun club. "I don't understand why the players, owners, concessions don't pay their share. … How do I get reimbursed? I can maintain my four season tickets, although at a higher price.''
Minnesotans who care about their pro sports teams can be forgiven for being skeptical of anything happening soon. They have seen it all in recent years.
In the Twins stadium special session of 1997, passions ran so high that callers overloaded the Capitol switchboard. A clumsy threat to move the Twins to North Carolina melted away, as did a later attempt by fellow moguls to buy out owner Carl Pohlad and "contract'' the team into oblivion in 2001. This time around, the Twins and their Metrodome colleagues, the Vikings, are pitching new stadiums and want the taxpayers to help.
Which brings us to Blaine.
The Anoka County Board and the Blaine City Council have united behind a Vikings' stadium proposal that could eventually expand into a huge planned development called "The Preserve at Rice Creek.'' Housing, shops, a new city center, entertainment and health complexes, and office space are part of the plan, as is an increase in the county sales tax, and perhaps other tax hikes.
Rick Wilder's 140-acre parcel is largely within the boundaries of the project, but he isn't worried. "It's nothing that I'm going to lose sleep over,'' Wilder said. "Eminent domain better not be part of the plan, because that doesn't exist in my mind.''
Wilder's customers in the club's pro shop on a frigid, windswept day disagreed with the sales tax increase. They noted that McCombs already enjoys sell-out crowds, a lucrative television contract and a huge increase in the team's value since he bought it.
"I don't want to pay a sales tax for the Vikings,'' Roepke said.
Over at Blaine City Hall, Vikings fan Ann Hanson of Coon Rapids supported the plan and said she would be willing to absorb a small tax hike to improve her community's rep.
"I think it would bring more people up here,'' she said as she filled out a job application in city offices. "People cut on Blaine and Coon Rapids a lot.''
Debra Mahle and Nick Costa of Coon Rapids agreed that it would be good for the community. But they were hesitant to open the public checkbook.
"It's a benefit for jobs,'' Mahle said. "We have plenty of space available.'' But she said she worries that there are more important uses for scarce tax funds, such as education. Costa, who has seen Blaine boom since he grew up there, believes in a user-pays financing plan.
"I really don't mind, but I think the person who goes there should be taxed,'' he said of the new stadium.
Across Interstate 35W from the site is a small shopping area where Don Hallaway runs a pet store. To him, the open spaces surrounding his store may not be the best place for football hordes in need of hotel rooms and large platters of ribs.
"I don't see how it's going to go anywhere but downtown,'' he said, as family dogs patrolled the store's entryway. "The eating, drinking and dining are established already there.''
As a business owner, he said, he'd be helped by the increase in traffic. But as a homeowner in nearby Ham Lake, he would worry about the congestion.
Jennifer Dwelis of Blaine, dropping in for dog food, worried that a huge development could change the nature of the community. She travels to Bloomington for work and is concerned about increasing traffic on I-35W.
And taxes for sports teams? Get right outta Blaine.
"I'm not a huge sports fan — never have been,'' she said. Dwelis believes there are many more pressing programs for tax funds. "I see a lot of needs. I don't think the stadium is one of them,'' she said. "I'm sorry, Red, I think we can do without a football stadium.''
A year ago, legislators and advocates were wrangling over a $4.2 billion budget deficit and decided to fill the hole with cuts and use of reserves rather than tax hikes. It seems odd to some people that a year later, the cha-ching of tax plans is being mentioned in the stadium debate.
"It's pretty shocking that this is the only issue where increasing revenue is an OK solution,'' said Ben Goldfarb, executive director of Progressive Minnesota, a liberal group that has joined fiscal conservatives in opposing a publicly funded stadium.
FANS WEIGH IN
But sport, for the devotee, is not just another business. There is an emotional attachment to the old ball club that transcends the balance sheet. And in the case of the Twins faithful, it is an article of faith that the move from Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington into the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis was a sin against the national pastime.
"The true form of baseball should be outdoors,'' said Troy Klecker of Owatonna, looking at a glass case containing the 1987 World Series trophy at TwinsFest last weekend. Mary Beth Behl of Lindstrom, walking the displays with her husband, Jeff, and their two children, recalled days spent at the old stadium in Bloomington and how the game itself is transformed in the wind, cold and heat.
"Those are the remembrances that my husband and I have,'' she said, emphasizing that using her tax dollars to provide similar memories for her two children is a reasonable trade-off.
Jeff Behl added that he recognizes it's not entirely a fair transaction. "Yes, it is blackmail, but everyone else seems to get it done,'' he said, referring to other major-league host cities that have built new stadiums.
The Metrodome, despite being the venue of thrilling, Game 7 World Series titles in 1987 and 1991, is derided by Twins fans as a football stadium with a baseball field crammed into it. They complain of the crick-neck syndrome of trying to focus on home plate in a seat oriented toward an outfield patch of green where nothing is happening.
At TwinsFest, they crowded around the proposed solution, a scale model of a new, baseball-only ballpark with a smaller capacity and a moveable roof that would keep the field dry on rainy days without shutting out the spring cold or summer heat.
Lowell Swenson of Burnsville stood on a springy sample of the Metrodome's new turf. He asked why the local hospitality taxes that built the Dome could not be relied on to build a new baseball stadium. As a sports fan who remembers ushering Gophers football games at (now-demolished) Memorial Stadium in the late 1940s, he said he views the Twins stadium project as something more than a business subsidy.
"I'm not building a stadium for Carl Pohlad,'' he said of the Twins owner. "I'm building it for me.''
OPPONENTS ADAMANT
The other side has emotion too. Super-sized players' contracts, the breakdown of players' loyalty to one uniform and rich-owners-get-richer economics have made major league sports sometimes look more like Enron than civic amenities. In public referendum votes and opinion polls in Minnesota, stadium subsidies are a tough sell.
"It comes down to a fairness issue,'' said Tom Montgomery, a St. Paul lawyer and lifelong baseball fan who helped organize opposition to St. Paul's 1999 stadium referendum, which was defeated.
"You've got owners who are billionaires, and players who are millionaires,'' he said. "When it comes down to nuts and bolts, I'd rather have my libraries open and funded. I'd rather have my rec centers open and funded.''
Ricky Rask of Minneapolis, a minister who helped organize opposition to previous stadium proposals, said she believes people who are concerned about their own economic security do not see stadium subsidies as a good deal. She said the economic benefits that stadium backers rhapsodize about "flow straight up, right into the pockets of the owners.''
These two images of sport — as the wholesome, character-building diversion or as another commercialized, over-priced entertainment — will vie in the public imagination as the stadium debate heats up. A recent statewide poll by the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune showed 62 percent of respondents were against taxpayer financing for a Twins ballpark; 65 percent opposed it for a Vikings stadium. It was, however, the lowest level of opposition to the idea that the Star Tribune poll has found during seven years of stadium debates.
Robert Katz of Eagan, a stadium supporter and veteran fan, remembers taking the trolley cars to cross-town double-headers between the old Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints.
Those days are over, Katz knows. He is aware the teams have lost the element of players' loyalty. Sports has taken its lumps. But he hopes it survives, and that Minnesota does what it can to help.
"My feeling is that if we don't, we aren't going to have these teams,'' Katz said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Ragsdale covers state government and politics and can be contacted at jragsdale@ pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5529.
BY JIM RAGSDALE Pioneer Press Thu, Jan. 29, 2004
St. Paul Minnesota
Rick Wilder, owner of a popular gun club in Blaine, looked at the map of a proposed new Minnesota Vikings stadium in his neighborhood and made an interesting discovery.
The clay discs his customers train their shotguns on could one day be arcing toward thousands of tailgaters in purple.
"That's news to me,'' said Wilder, owner of the Metro Gun Club, where a 70,000-seat stadium complex could someday encroach on the woodsy fringe of suburbia.
The map, shown to him by a reporter, was presented to a state stadium task force this month by Blaine and Anoka County officials pushing for a Vikings stadium.
"They could incorporate us into the half-time show,'' quipped shooter Chuck Roepke of Blaine.
Welcome to Minnesota's debate over sports palaces, in which the vision of a gleaming arena crashes into reality on the ground. Recent interviews with citizens — from ardent fans to passionate opponents — suggest that while Minnesotans may wear the colors and enjoy their teams, they remain conflicted about kicking in tax dollars for games played by multimillionaires.
For nearly seven years, developers and owners and their lobbying armies have sketched pretty pictures, and people such as Wilder have learned not to expect bulldozers at their doors anytime soon.
"I have no problem with a stadium,'' said Larry Hammond of Ham Lake, a Vikings season-ticket holder who was sipping coffee with friends at the gun club. "I don't understand why the players, owners, concessions don't pay their share. … How do I get reimbursed? I can maintain my four season tickets, although at a higher price.''
Minnesotans who care about their pro sports teams can be forgiven for being skeptical of anything happening soon. They have seen it all in recent years.
In the Twins stadium special session of 1997, passions ran so high that callers overloaded the Capitol switchboard. A clumsy threat to move the Twins to North Carolina melted away, as did a later attempt by fellow moguls to buy out owner Carl Pohlad and "contract'' the team into oblivion in 2001. This time around, the Twins and their Metrodome colleagues, the Vikings, are pitching new stadiums and want the taxpayers to help.
Which brings us to Blaine.
The Anoka County Board and the Blaine City Council have united behind a Vikings' stadium proposal that could eventually expand into a huge planned development called "The Preserve at Rice Creek.'' Housing, shops, a new city center, entertainment and health complexes, and office space are part of the plan, as is an increase in the county sales tax, and perhaps other tax hikes.
Rick Wilder's 140-acre parcel is largely within the boundaries of the project, but he isn't worried. "It's nothing that I'm going to lose sleep over,'' Wilder said. "Eminent domain better not be part of the plan, because that doesn't exist in my mind.''
Wilder's customers in the club's pro shop on a frigid, windswept day disagreed with the sales tax increase. They noted that McCombs already enjoys sell-out crowds, a lucrative television contract and a huge increase in the team's value since he bought it.
"I don't want to pay a sales tax for the Vikings,'' Roepke said.
Over at Blaine City Hall, Vikings fan Ann Hanson of Coon Rapids supported the plan and said she would be willing to absorb a small tax hike to improve her community's rep.
"I think it would bring more people up here,'' she said as she filled out a job application in city offices. "People cut on Blaine and Coon Rapids a lot.''
Debra Mahle and Nick Costa of Coon Rapids agreed that it would be good for the community. But they were hesitant to open the public checkbook.
"It's a benefit for jobs,'' Mahle said. "We have plenty of space available.'' But she said she worries that there are more important uses for scarce tax funds, such as education. Costa, who has seen Blaine boom since he grew up there, believes in a user-pays financing plan.
"I really don't mind, but I think the person who goes there should be taxed,'' he said of the new stadium.
Across Interstate 35W from the site is a small shopping area where Don Hallaway runs a pet store. To him, the open spaces surrounding his store may not be the best place for football hordes in need of hotel rooms and large platters of ribs.
"I don't see how it's going to go anywhere but downtown,'' he said, as family dogs patrolled the store's entryway. "The eating, drinking and dining are established already there.''
As a business owner, he said, he'd be helped by the increase in traffic. But as a homeowner in nearby Ham Lake, he would worry about the congestion.
Jennifer Dwelis of Blaine, dropping in for dog food, worried that a huge development could change the nature of the community. She travels to Bloomington for work and is concerned about increasing traffic on I-35W.
And taxes for sports teams? Get right outta Blaine.
"I'm not a huge sports fan — never have been,'' she said. Dwelis believes there are many more pressing programs for tax funds. "I see a lot of needs. I don't think the stadium is one of them,'' she said. "I'm sorry, Red, I think we can do without a football stadium.''
A year ago, legislators and advocates were wrangling over a $4.2 billion budget deficit and decided to fill the hole with cuts and use of reserves rather than tax hikes. It seems odd to some people that a year later, the cha-ching of tax plans is being mentioned in the stadium debate.
"It's pretty shocking that this is the only issue where increasing revenue is an OK solution,'' said Ben Goldfarb, executive director of Progressive Minnesota, a liberal group that has joined fiscal conservatives in opposing a publicly funded stadium.
FANS WEIGH IN
But sport, for the devotee, is not just another business. There is an emotional attachment to the old ball club that transcends the balance sheet. And in the case of the Twins faithful, it is an article of faith that the move from Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington into the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis was a sin against the national pastime.
"The true form of baseball should be outdoors,'' said Troy Klecker of Owatonna, looking at a glass case containing the 1987 World Series trophy at TwinsFest last weekend. Mary Beth Behl of Lindstrom, walking the displays with her husband, Jeff, and their two children, recalled days spent at the old stadium in Bloomington and how the game itself is transformed in the wind, cold and heat.
"Those are the remembrances that my husband and I have,'' she said, emphasizing that using her tax dollars to provide similar memories for her two children is a reasonable trade-off.
Jeff Behl added that he recognizes it's not entirely a fair transaction. "Yes, it is blackmail, but everyone else seems to get it done,'' he said, referring to other major-league host cities that have built new stadiums.
The Metrodome, despite being the venue of thrilling, Game 7 World Series titles in 1987 and 1991, is derided by Twins fans as a football stadium with a baseball field crammed into it. They complain of the crick-neck syndrome of trying to focus on home plate in a seat oriented toward an outfield patch of green where nothing is happening.
At TwinsFest, they crowded around the proposed solution, a scale model of a new, baseball-only ballpark with a smaller capacity and a moveable roof that would keep the field dry on rainy days without shutting out the spring cold or summer heat.
Lowell Swenson of Burnsville stood on a springy sample of the Metrodome's new turf. He asked why the local hospitality taxes that built the Dome could not be relied on to build a new baseball stadium. As a sports fan who remembers ushering Gophers football games at (now-demolished) Memorial Stadium in the late 1940s, he said he views the Twins stadium project as something more than a business subsidy.
"I'm not building a stadium for Carl Pohlad,'' he said of the Twins owner. "I'm building it for me.''
OPPONENTS ADAMANT
The other side has emotion too. Super-sized players' contracts, the breakdown of players' loyalty to one uniform and rich-owners-get-richer economics have made major league sports sometimes look more like Enron than civic amenities. In public referendum votes and opinion polls in Minnesota, stadium subsidies are a tough sell.
"It comes down to a fairness issue,'' said Tom Montgomery, a St. Paul lawyer and lifelong baseball fan who helped organize opposition to St. Paul's 1999 stadium referendum, which was defeated.
"You've got owners who are billionaires, and players who are millionaires,'' he said. "When it comes down to nuts and bolts, I'd rather have my libraries open and funded. I'd rather have my rec centers open and funded.''
Ricky Rask of Minneapolis, a minister who helped organize opposition to previous stadium proposals, said she believes people who are concerned about their own economic security do not see stadium subsidies as a good deal. She said the economic benefits that stadium backers rhapsodize about "flow straight up, right into the pockets of the owners.''
These two images of sport — as the wholesome, character-building diversion or as another commercialized, over-priced entertainment — will vie in the public imagination as the stadium debate heats up. A recent statewide poll by the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune showed 62 percent of respondents were against taxpayer financing for a Twins ballpark; 65 percent opposed it for a Vikings stadium. It was, however, the lowest level of opposition to the idea that the Star Tribune poll has found during seven years of stadium debates.
Robert Katz of Eagan, a stadium supporter and veteran fan, remembers taking the trolley cars to cross-town double-headers between the old Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints.
Those days are over, Katz knows. He is aware the teams have lost the element of players' loyalty. Sports has taken its lumps. But he hopes it survives, and that Minnesota does what it can to help.
"My feeling is that if we don't, we aren't going to have these teams,'' Katz said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Ragsdale covers state government and politics and can be contacted at jragsdale@ pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5529.