Sound Off: Stadium happened even though process is messy and cumbersome
Don Heinzman’s Sound Off blog – Someone said the Minnesota Legislative process is messy and cumbersome, but eventually some good can come out of it.
Never was this more on display than in the debate about the Viking (People’s) stadium, which ended as House Speaker Kurt Zellers said, he’d like to see it pass but wouldn’t vote for it. (Later he said that isn’t what he meant.)
Somehow there was the feeling that Minnesota wouldn’t lose the Vikings if a new stadium weren’t built.
Wrong.
Zygi Wilf, Vikings owner, has been silent but don’t believe for a minute that without a stadium he wouldn’t have moved or sold the team.
Or there are those who believed that Minnesota could always get another National Football League team without costing an arm and a leg.
Wrong.
It took years to get back franchises after the North Stars and Minneapolis Lakers left.
Then, there are those legislators who were fearful that a vote for a stadium would doom them in the next election.
If that were the case, Hennepin County Commissioners who voted for the Target Field deal would have been defeated. They were re-elected. Those in Anoka County who pushed for the stadium in their county were all re-elected.
You see the public wanted the Vikings to stay for all kinds of reasons, and while they mourned subsidizing a billionaire owner, on this issue they are willing to forgive and even forget. – DON HEINZMAN
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SKOL VIKINGS !!!!! Every idiot that opposed a new stadium can go and cry in a corner somewhere. We will have a stadium that will make this state proud!
Mr. Heinzman. I am happy to see you speaking for the public. However, it would have been nice if the public could have spoken for itself. A referendum would have allowed exactly that to happen. The politicians killed that option deader than the Manson victims. Why do you suppose that was, given your insight into public sentiment?