If the Minnesota politicians have little appetite for a publicly-funded stadium, the Minnesota electorate is downright nauseous. And so any effort to build a new stadium for the Vikings with public money will deftly avoid the direct input of the voters.
According to Mike Kazsuba and Kevin Duchschere of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the current stadium bill will allow a local government to increase sales taxes without a public referendum. The Legislature employed a similar tactic in securing public funding for the Twins’ baseball stadium.
The thinking is that, if the citizens vote, the measure would fail. Indeed, it’s believed that, if public funding of the Twins’ stadium had been put out to a vote, the effort would have failed, too.
This time around, the cause is less popular. Even with the looming possibility of a move by the Vikings to Los Angeles, the sense of urgency to get this done simply doesn’t seem to be present.
The folks in Minnesota may never develop a sufficient sense of urgency. The biggest danger is that the urgency will come when it’s too late to do anything about it.
