Clean Water:

Should a Stadium Have Been Part of the Amendment?

Topic: Clean Water

Prominent Minnesota conservationist John Helland is monitoring and commenting here on state officials' decision-making processes regarding funds provided by the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

Wow! Could it be true? Is Sid Hartman, the bard of Minnesota sportswriting, actually reading Dennis Anderson? Could Sid really be interested in hunting, fishing, wildlife, parks that allow camping overnight...and even clean water? It doesn't appear he's too interested in the arts, but more about that later.

What piqued my surprise was the Star Tribune's side by side columns Friday by the two journalists. As we know, from being a Star Tribune reader or a reader of this Conservation Minnesota blog, Anderson constantly writes about the outdoors constitutional amendment victory, championing it before it happened last year and now monitoring the legislature to forecast how the new funding may be spent. Today, Hartman actually opines that a new Vikings stadium "problem" might have been solved if they were part of the amendment question before the voters last November. As much as Anderson has written about the need for the constitutional amendment victory, Hartman has lavishly poured on...some say, ad nauseum...the need for new sports stadiums in his column. The Vikings now being at the top of the list!

Toiling over at the legislature myself, while working on the Clean Water, Land and Legacy amendment, I don't believe I ever heard any discussion - at least publicly in a committee hearing room - on a Vikings stadium being included in the constitutional language and ballot question. However, that doesn't mean it wasn't talked about by legislators privately or lobbyists prowling the hallways. Perhaps the ballot question should have read: "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate funding
first to the Minnesota Vikings football team for a new stadium at a cost of up to a billion dollars, then to protect, enhance and restore our water sources, wetlands, prairies, forests, fish, game, wildlife habitat, parks, trails, and to preserve our arts and cultural heritage, by an increase in the sales tax of three-eights of one percent until the year 2034?" I mean, how excited could the voters get when they saw this type of question before them?

Fortunately, for the green and arts communities, if the Vikings ever were considered in the constitutional amendment question, Minnesota legislators weren't willing to bring that up or go that far on the ballot. And Sid conveniently doesn't bring up the fact that a Twin's stadium proposal within the last decade went down to a resounding defeat in Minneapolis when it appeared on a ballot question. The 2008 question campaign, purpose and victory clearly was for the outdoors and the arts, and adding any kind of stadium proposal might have sunk it.

Hartman seems to slam the arts community at the end of his diatribe by mentioning that venues like the Shubert Theater, which cost $4.7 million in Minneapolis money some years ago to move it a few blocks, has only 520 seats and still needs $37 million for renovation purposes. Let's see, the Vikings would like to see $700 million of taxpayer's money to build their own design of a stadium. It might seat upwards of 50,000 at a time, but at only eight home games a season. The outdoor and art communities clearly came out ahead last November.

Should a Stadium Have Been Part of the Amendment?

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