UPDATED: Council Split On Stadium Proposal

To spend or not to spend? That is the question city officials are asking themselves regarding a new Minnesota Vikings stadium. 

According to Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak and City Council President Barb Johnson, the answer is "yes," at one of three sites around downtown. But their proposal, which will be finalized and presented to Governor Mark Dayton on Friday, has garnered some opposition and reservations from some of Southwest's City Councilmembers.

"I’ve never been a supporter of public funding for sports facilities," Councilmember Betsy Hodges (Ward 13) said Tuesday afternoon. 

Councilmember Elizabeth Glidden (Ward 8) agreed.

"I don't support city sales tax to pay for a stadium," she wrote in an email to Patch on Wednesday night. "In fact, the Mayor has not talked to me and although I have asked for the financial plans he says he has on proposed Minneapolis sites(...) and have asked for details on his sales tax proposal, he has not responded with any of that information to date."

"In 1997, Minneapolis residents voted to have a $10 million cap on (public investment in) sports facilities," she added. "The word we have on record from residents is that they don’t want more than $10 million in investment from the city."

That cap would have to be overturned by the state legislature in order to make any city-funded deal go through. Hodges said she thought the money could be better spent in more productive ways.

"If we raise that amount of money, would we want to spend it on education and infrastructure," she asked. "That would not only provide jobs but have a long-term economic impact."

For Councilmember Meg Tuthill (Ward 10), the issue is more about fairness. City and tax dollars from across the state went into the Metrodome, she said.

"Why in heaven’s name would we look at building a stadium and the infrastructure again (without that)?" she said. "Am I thrilled about public financing? No. this is a statewide amenity, this should be a statewide tax."

For Tuthill, like Hodges, the issue is about economics—the money that the current stadium pours into the local economy.

"There is money to be made off the dome. Even on Christmas, it’s rented," she said. "When they had the NCAA finals here (in 2001), we could have closed our store for the quarter on the money we made."

That's the logic Rybak and Johnson seem to be banking on when they present their plan to councilmembers, and Johnson and Schiff say they think they've got the votes to get it through.

Southwest's other councilmember, John Quincy (Ward 11) did not respond to repeated requests to comment on this article.

UPDATED 8:30 a.m. 10/27/11: This article was updated to include comments from Councilmember Elizabeth Glidden made after the orignial publication time.