One tax, two stadiums?

05/03/2006

Senate Democrats propose 0.5% metro sales levy for Vikings, Twins, transit projects

BY ARON KAHN and PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

In an unusually strong display of political power, state Senate Democratic leaders pulled the Minnesota Vikings even with the Twins in the fierce stadium race Tuesday, delivering a plan for retractable-roof stadiums for each team financed with a half-cent seven-county metro sales tax.

If approved by the full Senate on Thursday or Friday, the newly composed bill also would offer a huge carrot to the growing number of mass-transit advocates in a time of swiftly rising gasoline prices.

The proposed 0.5 percent tax — or 10 cents on a $20 purchase — would yield nearly $13 billion over 30 years, more than $12 billion of which would go to rail and bus improvements.

“I would sell my soul for transit,” said Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, a supporter of a proposed light-rail line from Minneapolis to St. Paul.

More particularly to stadium backers, the tax also would pay the state’s share of a Twins stadium by 2012 and the state’s portion of a Vikings stadium by 2015, according to estimates by the chief sponsor, Democratic-Farmer-Labor gubernatorial candidate Steve Kelley of Hopkins.

A referendum on the tax would be held in November in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington counties.

But if the measure is approved by the Senate, it will differ radically from a House-approved Twins plan for ballpark in the Minneapolis Warehouse District and could lead to the death of both stadium projects, leaders in that chamber said.

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, predicted the Republican House majority would not accept the two-stadium combination or the metrowide sales tax, which was proposed Tuesday in the DFL-led Senate Rules Committee.

“It’s a movement to kill the Twins,” Sviggum said. “There’s no way that the House will support the metrowide sales tax.”

Sviggum, who has repeatedly argued against combining Twins and Vikings stadium bills, accused Senate Democrats of “monkeying around” with the Twins-Hennepin County plan approved by the House last week.

That plan had been much more successful at the Capitol this year, a reality noted by the Vikings when owner Zygi Wilf Friday appealed to the Senate Taxes Committee to tack a Vikings amendment onto the Twins bill. Unless the Vikings effort is directly tied to the Twins, Wilf said, his team’s quest for a stadium in Blaine is dead this year.

The Senate Rules Committee accomplished that Tuesday, after a dizzying day of procedural moves by the DFL and frustrated parries by the Republican minority and a few Democrats.

After the two parties caucused over the issue, the Rules Committee pulled stalled stadium legislation out of the Taxes Committee and made the tax changes and the other alterations.

Though the reconfigured stadium bill requires a referendum, the requirement could be removed on the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, said he would vote to remove the ballot issue but didn’t know if there would be enough votes to do so.

The Twins, who have sought a workable ballpark bill for 11 years, say they will drop out of the stadium sweepstakes if a referendum ultimately is required. If the referendum is not removed on the floor, it could be removed in a House-Senate conference committee, should the issue get that far.

“There are problems, but the last chapter is far from over,” said Twins ballpark point man Jerry Bell, who at minimum was relieved the stadium issue was pried from the stalemated Taxes Committee.

The procedural move was accomplished when the Senate voted 33-29 to pull the Twins bill out of the Taxes Committee and send it to the Rules Committee, considered friendlier to the chief sponsor’s stadium plans for the Twins and Vikings.

Pulling the bill from the Taxes Committee saved Kelley’s metrowide tax proposal from almost certain defeat by the committee’s five Republicans plus Sen. John Marty of Roseville, a Democrat who for more than a decade has fought public subsidies for sports teams.

Kelley then won a 13-11 vote in the Rules Committee to add the less-successful Vikings plan to the Twins legislation and finance both with the metro tax.

“We’re all looking like fools in this Minnesota Senate because we can’t do it in a nice, orderly way,’’ said Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, who contrasted the partisan Rules Committee action with the bipartisan 76-55 House vote for the Twins bill.

“If the Vikings take down the Twins bill, no lobbyist from the Vikings will ever see me again,’’ a frustrated Day said.

Some Republicans contended Kelley’s bill is intended to put the heat on Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty by making him decide on a metrowide tax. Pawlenty said he would sign a Twins bill with a smaller Hennepin County-only tax, but he likely won’t support a much larger metrowide tax.

“The primary problem is that the Senate bill does not build a stadium,’’ Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said. “The people of Minnesota should ask their senators how this bill would get the job done.”

McClung didn’t elaborate.

Kelley said his plan makes more sense because it funds transit and resurrects the Vikings’ chances for a stadium, enabling the Legislature to finally be done with two thorny stadium issues.

He added that raising large amounts of money immediately — $219 million from the metro tax in the first year — eliminates the need for “hundreds of millions of dollars’’ in interest payments over 30 years, which the House-passed Twins plan would require.

His bill also would put a retractable roof on the ballpark — replacing the outdoor design envisioned by the original Twins-Hennepin County plan. That plan called for a $522 million ballpark, but the Senate blueprint with the roof would raise the cost to $605 million. The Twins would pay $130 million toward construction, plus 25 percent of the cost of the roof.

The Senate Taxes Committee did not act Tuesday on an on-campus University of Minnesota football stadium bill.

Chairman Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, polled Republican committee members about supporting his proposed sales tax on sports-themed clothing and souvenirs. When they refused to support the tax, he canceled a hearing.