Tag: stadium
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Shot In The Dark: Today’s News, Delivered In 2013. As Usual.
Remember when “Electronic Pull Tabs” were going to get the taxpayer off the hook for paying for Zygi Wilf’s big real-estate upgrade? Yeah, someone pointed out that that was baked monkey doodle, and it wasn’t someone with a tin “Journalist” badge. Of course, Minneapolis and Minnesota government has been busy rationalizing riots and carnage in…
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All Is Proceeding As Predicted
Five years after Governor Flint-Smith Dayton got his Vikings Stadium deal, he admits his “e-pulltab” proposal – which was supposed to fund the state’s share of Zygi Wilf’s real-estate upgrade – was a flop (emphasis added): By now, it’s a well-known fact that the plan to fund the state’s $498 million share of the new…
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Quintuple Whammy
A year or so after he finally departed the Minnesota Vikings, the City Pages has finally pulled its collective head out of Chris Kluwe’s ass long enough to do some reporting about the taxpayer-funded improvments to Zygi Wilf’s real estate portfolio the Vikings and their stadium. And while Corey Zurowski’s piece is not quite on par with the reporting the…
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The Mulligan Session, Part II
The same DFL employees who gave us “E-Pulltabs” as a means of supplying “the state’s share” of an extorted payoff to an out-of-state billionaire for his real-estate upgrade (which fell 95% short of predictions, as predicted by certain right-wing bloggers) are going to try to take a mulligan and get it right on the second…
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When Making Your Weekend Plans…
…don’t get far from a radio. Or a computer, or a mobile device. You get the idea. Big Northern Alliance Radio Network broadcast tomorrow. We’ll have Cam Winton on to talk about the Minneapolis mayor’s race, and Senator Sean Nienow will be with us to talk about his call for an investigation into the Vikings…
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You Were Warned – Really!
Last March, conservative bloggers – Gary Gross, me, and others – warned you that the Dayton Administration’s plan to use gambling revenue to build the stadium was pure vapor, and that Ted Mondale (of the Sports Facilities Commission) was blowing smoke up Minnesota’s collective skirt, since gambling revenues have been shrinking, not growing. Charitable gambling…
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You Were Warned
A source at the Capitol – who was heavily involved in the battle against public funding for the Vikings stadium – emailed me with his first “I Told You So” moment of the new political epoch: I believe I said, all along the campaign for endorsement…the primary…and the general election: “The numbers that are being…
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Open Letter To Helga Braid Nation
Senator Sean Nienow explains his votes on the Vikings stadium – and its half-billion-dollar infusion of public money – in the Isanti-Chisago Star It wasn’t just the price tag that compelled me to vote against sending the bill to the governor. It has a structurally unsound funding mechanism and it ignores and belittles the expressed will…
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Conservative Voters: Step Back From The Ledge (Part II)
I’ve heard not a few conservative voters groan in frustration over the stadium vote this past few weeks: “why did we even bother voting for the GOP in 2010?” And watching the way some “conservative” legislators caved in at the first sign of beer-gutted yahoos and their husbands flouncing about the halls of the capitol…
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Conservative Voters: Step Back From The Ledge
One of the worst takeaways from this stadium fiasco has been the wedge it’s put in the GOP – and which, naturally, the DFL are using on Republicans, inside and outside the party. Which is politics, and to be expected. But it’s also at least in part wrong. Hear me out here. ———- Conservative voters…
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It Almost Makes Light Rail Look Fiscally Responsible
$77 per ticket per game. That’s what the taxpayers will be paying to subsidize the Vikings stadium if the legislature caves in on the deal. I’m getting those figures from that teabagging wingnut John Marty: If the bill for the Minnesota Vikings new stadium passes the cost to taxpayers will be $77.30 per ticket, per game,…
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Shearing Begins
One upside of having a news site like the MInnPost: while they are fashionably center-left, they are not completely in bed with the Sports-Industrial Complex. Since they don’t “sell” any more “copies” on Vikings game days, they can actually report, y’know, facts. Like this bit by Marlys Harris on the top five things they’re…
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Pure Vapor
Ted “Mini-Governor” Mondale wants you, the voter, to believe that 4-2=6. Metropolitan Sports Facility Chairman Ted Mondale said the electronic pull-tab financing mechanism for the state’s $400 million share is solid, despite questions about gambling revenue projections and the bonds the state intends to sell. Mondale also seemed to be hinting that he’s not worried…
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A Stadium Built By Unicorns
In every engineering company in America, stuck on a bulletin board or taped to someone’s cube, is this cartoon: Everyone who’s worked in engineering or any kind of analysis has seen this sort of reasoning on projects; you start with parameters, end with a conclusion – and the details will get filled in later, once…
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Top Seven Dumbest Arguments For Public Subsidy For A Vikings Stadium
In rough order (i.e., either can move up or down 2-3 positions in the list depending on my mood): “So you’re willing to see the Vikings leave?”: I’m a baseball fan – and to the extent I care about the NFL, I follow the Bears. So I really don’t care. Seriously? No more or less…