[Mpls] Stadium

[Steve Brandt]

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I'd like to make two points:

1) Eddie Felien tries to tie county plans to issue stadium bonds to the city charter referendum requirement.  The city language is only applicable to city-issued bonds.  The county would be the issuer here, and the county has no such restriction.  The precise city charter language follows:

"provided, that where, with respect to any and all types and forms of obligation or indebtedness authorized by this Charter and by the laws of the State of Minnesota, the aggregate amount of any such obligations or indebtedness to be issued or incurred for any improvement, including but not limited to acquisition, development, construction or betterment, of any public building, stadium, or other capital improvement project, shall in all phases from inception to completion exceed Fifteen Million Dollars ($15,000,000.00), the Board of Estimate and Taxation shall not issue or sell any bonds or other obligations nor incur any indebtedness for such purpose without the approval of a majority of the electors voting on the question of issuing such obligations or incurring such indebtedness at a general or special election.

2)  Bruce Gaardner posts, in part:  The editors of the Strib wrote on Tuesday that the Twins would be putting up 36% of the cost...I'm not inclined to cut them slack on an editorial about what they consider so vital to their well-being.

The dirty little secret here at the Strib is that while the editorial page keeps backing a stadium, it's not in the economic self-interest of those who work here.  Under a labor contract provision I was involved in negotiating in the early 90s, outside parking income from Star Tribune parking lots reduces the cost of employee parking.  Renting out those spaces for exorbitant prices for Twins, Vikings, Gopher and other stadium events brings in considerable money.  That can be seen by the fact that employees here pay the company $45 per month for parking.  My bet is that's about half the going rate for other surface parking in this part of downtown.  That charge goes up if the Metrodome goes away or hosts only small-time events that can't command exorbitant parking prices.

Steve Brandt
Star Tribune/Kingfield