Tag Archives: Stadium

May 14, 2012 · 9:02 pm

Call to Action

Tax Payers of Minnesota- the opposing team is on our 1 yard line, there’s seconds left on the clock and its fourth down. We have one last, slim chance to defeat this stadium con job by the NFL and Ziggy Wilf, one last chance to take a stand against hundreds of millions in corporate welfare. The last step in this deal is for the City Council in Minneapolis to approve the deal. If they do not, it’s back to the drawing board, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

On Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council will be voting on this deal, they’re the last line between the taxpayers of Minnesota and sanity. Backroom deals, loopholes to getting around letting the citizens vote on this.. games to get around the fact that this wouldn’t pass on it’s own, because it’s an awful deal. For Minnesota and for us taxpayers.

Th city council knows this, tehy know there about to something horrible for their constituents.

All weekend end long there has been a ton of media coverage about this deal and just how bad it is for the taxpayers of Minnesota.

Patrick Russe- local dean of sports columnists and Vikings fan, in his column this weekend said the the media dropped the ball on this one. In their rush to get this passed the completely neglected the fact that in reality, the Wilfs $450M investment in the new stadium, the loyalty they have for Minnesota? Complete BS.

From Russe’s column: Add it up – naming rights, license fees, NFL grant _ and you have $450 million of Zygi’s $477 million. That doesn’t seem to be much suffering for a fellow now being depicted as the patient martyr of stadium negotiations.

That’s right, Ziggy is actually in for $50M. If his deal does the same thing for the Vikings that Colts deal did for that team, that’s 10% of just the apprication he’ll enjoy from this deal. Figure the value of the team will go from $750M to $1.2B.. And we’ll be subsidzing Ziggy’s windfall with every purcahase we make for the next 30 years.

AP Sports Columnist Tim Dalhberg-

By the time the Wilfs get done selling stadium naming rights and the dreaded personal seat licenses, though, they may not even need the $200 million loan the NFL has promised to help get it done.

No wonder team executives were jubilant this week when Minnesota lawmakers voted to approve the deal, even though they added $50 million to the team’s share of the cost to keep angry taxpayers from attacking the state capitol with pitchforks.

“Let’s build it!” vice president Lester Bagley shouted, hugging another team executive as Vikings fans in the gallery above the state Senate chamber broke out in a rendition of the “Skol Vikings!” fight song.

It was a classic shakedown, the kind the NFL is particularly good at. After years of thinly veiled threats about the Vikings possibly moving to Los Angeles if they didn’t get a proper new stadium, Commissioner Roger Goodell put the hammer down last month with a visit to state legislators that jumpstarted what had been a stalled debate over how much taxpayers should cough up for the team.

The LA Scam.. there’ still no site picked in LA, no finance package in place, no team identified and the budgets in California, a serious mess.

Friends, readers, this isn’t done. The City Council is waaay more sensitive to public sentiment than the State Legislators. Their constituents are fired up that this is being rammed through with no vote. Now is the time, even if you don’t live in Minneapolis, send emails to RT Rybak, to the city council, implore them not to bend to the blackmail, they all know how bad a deal this is by now. Tell them to vote NO. It’s our last chance.

Unless of course someone files a lawsuit that claims this entire process was illegal, a violation of the states laws about open meetings, voting on tax increases etc etc. That could tie it up for several more years and keep us of getting fleeced.

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May 11, 2012 · 5:48 am

Doneish Deal

Looks like the stadium deal is done. Ok I can go back to being a fan and trying not to think about the $77 in public subsidy I’m getting from the taxpayers every time I buy a ticket.
For every game.
For the next 30 years.
Gov Dufus called the legislators heroic for giving over half a bil to the countries most successful sports and entertainment franchise.
Heroic.
I shit you not.
(gawd do I love that phrase, best thing to come out of three days of pre-dawn rants, I get to use it in my blog!)
He-fckg-roic.
*sigh*
May every incumbent politician get unelected in Nov. remember kids the entire house and senate in Minne is up for reelection. This entire legislative session was a colossal waste of time with amendments, gun laws, eroding women’s rights, and not one fn thing to help with any real problems.
*sigh* again.
I can’t pop the tots fast enough.

Good news for me is I don’t have to get I up at 445 anymore to write blogs about news that breaks after I go to bed. Which at my age is not long after the street lights come on. Or when the Kings Buffet early bird special ends, which ever comes first.
*sigh*
And *yawn*

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May 10, 2012 · 7:11 am

Morning All, How Was Your Night

    Good morning Minnesota. Sun’s coming now, reach with me won’t you? Lets reach across the pillow, grab a Winston out of the box, grab the lighter and spark up a smoke, lean back and draw deeply.

    We had us a rough night people. A rough night.

    We wake up this morning with our sheets wrapped around the posts, hair a mess and sitting next to us, with a big smile on their collective faces, the legislative leaders of the great State of Minnesota.

    And we’re a little sore where we shouldn’t be. To the tune of $450M dollars sore.

    So, once again to quote her highness, the Viking Queen herself, The Honorable Senator Julie Rosen R Fairmont. We did what she was hoping we wouldn’t. We took those NFL guys to task, hung’m upside down and shook the living tar out of ‘um and grabbed up their pocket change, $50M bucks worth of change. Nice chunk of money on its own, but a drop in the bucket given the $500M we tax payers are still on the hook for for the new Vikings Stadium.

    The good news for us, and I mean those of us who are going to wind up paying for this with bonds and taxes and a drop in support for things we might really need, like transportation and education. This is the state after all with one of the largest achievement gaps in the country between White and Black students, we have some other things to work on around here. The good news is there’s a chance the Ziggy and Spiders from Mars.. the NFL Gang won’t accept even a $50M increase in the amount they’ve been asked to contribute and might bail anyway, or force us to renegotiate. And why would they accept it? According to Fox News here in the Cities, LA is chomping at the bit the “rejoin the NFL” and apparently they’re waving boatloads of cash around.

    Ok. If that’s the case let me be the first in line to help the LA Vikings pack their stuff and get the hell outta here. The league has been wanting to put a team in LA for 17 years. Forcing situations like this puts them in a total win win situation. They either get my money or they get LA’s money. So we’re instructed to believe.

    Well, actions speaking louder than words and actions would tell you that for the last 17 years no one has been able to put together a deal to actually get a team into Los Angeles. Reality is, most folks in LA couldn’t give a crap, they don’t have the cash either, and frankly the football fans in LA kinda like having their choice of football to watch on Sunday. When the Raiders and the Rams were in town.. it was black out city. My Angelino friends are notorious for backing winners, and only winners. .500 season and you’ll be playing to empty stadiums. Again. And they get NO football on TV. That’s how it was, ask ‘um.

    What LA has been good for however is that they make a most excellent bullet for the NFL’s Tax Money Extortion Racket. Wanna new yard? Want it for free? Just say Ell Ayy… Say it with me.. Ell Ayyy… and boom. Legislators, more afraid of upsetting football fans and being tagged as the legislator on whose watch a beloved team bailed on a town than of the Tea Party No SPENDING, NO TAX platforms they were espousing just a year ago, line up climb in bed with us taxpayers and.. lets just say 50 Shades of Gray was at least consensual, so I’m told. . This was not. This more prison style.

    Last night, in a closed door meeting with members of the Senate, House, Governor, City of Minneapolis, Vikings.. I must be f’n stupid because I’m pretty sure that when government types meet and spending public money is on the table that meeting is required, by LAW to be open to the public. Not this time. Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem R-Rochester justified ignoring statue with the following statement. “we want to respect the business privacy of the Vikings.”

    Move over Senator Rosen, we have another candidate for Moron of the Week.

    Extortion: Getting something by force. The acquisition of something through the use of force or treats.

    (Ellll Aaaayyyy… Elllll Ayyyyyy)

    When you’re extorting the taxpayers of Minnesota, at least have the decency to observe the spirit of our laws which clearly say, do this in the open and let the sunshine illuminate the details of deals we’ll be paying for long after you’re dead. We are not only going to pay for this for evah, we also pay the salaries of the folks doing the negotiating for us.

    Maybe that’s a conflict of interest. Clearly I’m not bright enough to understand how for the second time in 5 years Minnesota T. Taxpayer is getting a stadium deal rammed down his throat with secret back room deals and underhanded maneuvering.

    *sigh* about all I can do is snuff out my butt and get a start on my day. Little sore, a little poorer and lot less confident in my state government.

    Skol Vikings.

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May 9, 2012 · 6:36 am

MN Senator Julie Rosen R-Fairmont: Is She For Real?

Stuff like this in paper gets me off to a crabby start. So much so that I’m breaking my rule against blogging on the bus, and blogging from my stupid iPhone thingie. Regarding the vote last night to approve giving $500M in free money to America’s most successful entertainment francise and a New Jersey based bazillionaire. Ms. Rosen had this to say:

;‘It seems like we’re hanging [the Vikings] upside down and trying to get all the loose change out of their pocket,’ said a frustrated Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, the chief Senate stadium author. ‘We just keep smacking them around.’ “

Seriously? If she thinks saving ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS is loose change and she’s supposed to be steward of my tax dollars she needs to be fired at once because box or rocks doesn’t even begin to describe how irresponsible and frankly stupid this woman is. And she’s a Republican, they’re supposed to be against this sort of thing.

And by-the-f’n way, if the Vikes decide this deal isn’t sweet enough, half a billion in free cash being loose change, will those purple shirt goofballs who screaming and whining has drowned out the 62% of MN voters who are against this, will these folks FINALLY agree that the NFL doesn’t give a rip about them until they give up tax dollars? And will they be pissed at the NFL for once, or is still the fault of Minnesotians who are against massive corporate subsidies? Just asking the question.

BTW lost in Senator Rosens lame statement, please don’t forget we’re still handing over, gratis, for nothing, ONE HALF BILLION in public tax dollars.

And while were in the spending mood we also voted to spend $44M to start renovating the State Capital. Vikes get their house, we want one too. I don’t think we can afford a new state capital, God knows theres a lot of empty office space in town that could house state government. Seriously, tear it down, it was built in 190 somthing or other. Other states have newer more modern buildings. I say let the government move to LA. We’d all be better off here!</

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May 7, 2012 · 7:47 pm

Vikings Dilemma

As you read the this the brave legislators in the state capital are deep in debate about giving a $600M donation to the richest and most successful professional league in America. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m torn because on the one hand I do love the Vikings. I love having an NFL team here, and I think without the team this town would seriously take a huge step backwards.

Yeah we still have the Twins and the Wild and the Timberwolves. I get it, but there something about an NFL franchise that says big league.

On the other hand, that’s an awful lot of money for a private business. We just went through this with the Twins. Back in 2007 the situation was the same, local private club needed taxpayer money to build a new house for themselves. There was no way it was going to pass a vote, Minnesota had passed legislation a few years earlier requiring a popular vote for tax increases, and since it wasn’t going to happen.. well the state legislature and the city of Minneapolis had to pull some midnight shenanigans to get it through.

Without a vote.

But it was the Twins, and we love the Twins, they’re a part of the community, same as the Vikings. Well before we go too far with that thought remember that Carl Pohlad was a cheapskate bastard who tried to sell the team off and when that didn’t work tried to dissolve the team for $150M check from MLB. Carl put a gun to the legislators heads and really demonstrated that any care about keeping baseball in Minnesota was predicated on us giving him $250M. Sorry Sid Hartman, it is what it is. And BTW Sid, Bobby Knight is an asshole too, he treated a lot of people like shit, I don’t care if you do call him your close personal friend.

One of the provisions of the Twins stadium bill that we’re dealing with now was when they stripped funding for the Vikings out of the package. Now we get to enjoy NFL doing to the same thing to Minnesota. Putting a gun to our heads and demanding public money for their private business. This time the amount is $600M, but the threats and the arguments are the same.

  • The team is has lowest revenue of any team in the league.
  • The building is the oldest or second oldest in the league. (in baseball this doesn’t matter as much as vintage parks are “cool”)
  • LA is looking for two new teams and the Vikings will move there if they don’t get what they want here.

This whole thing is getting tiring. One of the legislators, and I don’t know who made the comment that spending money on a new stadium now is like laying carpet in your house when the bedrooms are on fire.

Great point.

The Vikings, on their website point out that the Twins and the Timberwolves and the Mall of America were all built with public funds. True, but all three combined are less than this. AND, the Mall of America puts a shitload of funds back in the coffers. Every model I’ve seen of the Vike’s stadium does not.

They do not however, list the Wild as and example. the Xcel Center was also heavily subsidized by public money but the ownership of it, is the City of St. Paul NOT the team. The NFL doesn’t like those options.

Ya know, the stink’n ink’s barely dry on the largest television contract in history and they’re still here begging. I agree we need a new stadium for the team. I just think Ziggy should be paying for it. Paying for most of it anyway.

Lets face facts here, the economy in this state is a mess. We don’t have the money for this and we probably can’t afford 4 major sports franchises in this town. 5 if you include the Lynx. (kidding k kidding)

This isn’t about paying lower taxes, our taxes are plenty low as it is, this is about priorities and paying for private businesses.

I started out in the argument on the other side of this argument and want to point out that my friend Ed Kohler over at thedeets.com has really clarified my thinking on this, he’s been a crusader on this cause from day one. And he’s been up against a firestorm of criticism on this, Vikings fans are passionate, I get that, I hate to see sports teams leave. Ed’s taken his share of abuse despite being calm and collected in his arguments.

But in the end, it’s a business and it’s money. And public money should not be propping up a business, especially one that’s this successful. If LA will pay Ziggy more to go there, so be it.

I’ll miss football and this town will suck when they’re gone. But you know, I don’t have a Lambo in my garage and that sucks too.

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April 24, 2012 · 9:46 pm

Political Folly- The Season of the Lunatic is Upon Us

Looks like we’re going to be able to hunt wolves in Minnesota, legislators are in the process of passing legislation to allow wolf hunting. My favorite quote on this issue;

“This would be just one more way to continue the intrigue and enjoyment many people get out of hunting as well as a creative way to help control the coyote population.” Westrom said people have been telling him for years how much fun they had hunting wolves from aircraft in the 1960s and 1970s. “I want to bring back something that younger generations have never had the chance to experience.”

Are we going to shoot buffalo from trains too? Intrigue and enjoyment of blasting wolves from a plane, I wasn’t aware that we had that many pilot-hunters around. Whatever you thoughts on this issue are, pro or against, can we agree that is about as important as studying possum populations in urban forests in terms of things the legislators in St. Paul should be worrying about?

Speaking of priorities, our legislators also found time to pass a new law allowing Minnesotans to buy the “good” fireworks that we’d all been buying in Wisconsin anyway. Again, so glad that we had the time to pass this critical piece of legislation, it’s been too long since we were able to legally shoot fireworks into the summer sky. Thank G-d we don’t have to cross over to Wisconsin anymore. Gonna put more than one Badger state business out of business me things.

And what the hell people, since wasting the taxpayers time and money seems to be the order of the day, we couldn’t find time to legalize booze and car sales on Sunday. Where are your bloody priorities you worthless incumbent paper tigers.

Giving away our tax dollars that’s where. State is broke, the legislators are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and boom, along comes Roger Goodell and the NFL to hold a gun to these nimwits heads and demand $500M of our tax money for their private business. Yup we’re about to award Ziggy Wilf and the NFL half a billion dollars to build the NFL a new stadium here in Minnesota. Look, I love sports, I’ve loved the NFL in the past and I’ve been known to get whipped up for the Vikings but really? We have $550M lying around to give to one of the richest and most successful professional entertainment companies on the planet? I don’t see it. Good for the people of Los Angeles for not giving in to these clowns, hold your ground LA no one needs one of these franchises until they can pay their own way, and they can, looking at their balance sheets. For those of you from out of state, the issue was DOA this year until Roger Goodell came to town and held a gun to our heads.

Was it just me or did we have deficit to worry about just recently, oh that’s right we raided the schools to balance our budget. My mistake.

Some other gems from the most recent legislative session?

  • Marriage amendment on the November ballot, because hate is a family value.
  • Voter ID amendment. This is one of my favorites, by most accounts voter fraud in Minnesota accounts for 5 to 10 ballots a year. Thank goodness my faith in elections will be restored buy this POS legislation.
  • We’re working on legislation to enact what are called “barrier” laws to keep women from taking abortion inducing drugs. The new requirement they’re working would mandate that a Doctor be present, not just when the woman gets the prescription, but when she actually takes the pill and swallows it. This we’re told is a good thing for mothers and babies in Minnesota. Makes my head explode just thinking about that line. My wife, who BTW is very conservative on most issues and yet clearly sees this as yet another attack on women and has suggested that if they allow a RN to be present instead she’ll do house calls and not charge a nickel. Rebel.

When the Tea Party, who are about as non-partisan as James Carville, started making noise last election we were all led to believe they were all about fiscal responsibility and would not be pushing social issues and their conservative agenda. Well, surprise they’ve not done a thing about the budget, after all that’s a hard one, you can’t just cut spending and not raise taxes like they planned, that stupid thing called math got in the way. So instead they went to work on issues to rally their base, other far right zealots and here we are.

I saw an interesting video clip somewhere where a bunch of Tea Party types were out protesting the government. Cut spending, blah blah. Another clip was of the Occupy Wall Street folks, also protesting, this time big financial institutions, camera pans up and bazinga, they’re protesting in front of the same building.

I swear my head is going to explode.

BTW, there might be a way for your head not explode in Minnesota.

Independence Party of Minnesota.

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