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By Michael Khoo
August 10, 1999
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As St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman continues his search for new Twins ownership and west-metro officials consider their options for retaining the team in Minneapolis, opponents of publicly subsidized ballparks grow increasingly frustrated. They wonder why - in the face of significant public opposition - the debate continues.
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When Pittsburgh voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea, stadium supporters returned only three months later to offer "Plan B." In the end, they prevailed and work has already begun on PNC Ballpark. The Pittsburgh experience - and others like it - have left many Minnesotans frustrated that, despite public opposition, ballpark plans continue to resurface.
Rask: Frustration is certainly one word. But not surprise.The Reverend Ricky Rask was active in defeating a Twins stadium deal in 1997. She maintains now, as she did then, that tax dollars could be better spent on education, childcare, or crime prevention. Current ballpark supporters say professional sports are a civic asset and can bring economic revitalization.
Rask says those arguments are no more persuasive now than they were two years ago when Minnesotans clogged the Capitol switchboard with their objections to a stadium deal. But she says she doesn't anticipate the issue disappearing anytime soon.
Rask: It seems to be that where it just keeps rising like the hydra, you know, many-headed. Whatever you want to do with some of that mythological stuff. But I think it's more a sense of betrayal on the part of elected officials who really, I do think, have lost sight of who elected them and what they were elected to do.Rask lives in Minneapolis and says she won't actively oppose the St. Paul stadium plan, although her tax dollars would be used to finance the state's share of the proposed ballpark. She says she's simply too worn out from the first round to return to the debate. And many aren't just tired, they've come to believe that resistance is futile.
Michael Danielson is a professor of political science at Princeton University. He says cynicism is not unusual in ballpark discussions because the supporters enjoy several advantages allowing them to outlive the opposition.
Danielson: You can have lots of different "no's," but you only need one "yes." And the one "yes" - and that's because of the interests that have typically supported these things. You had a coalition of political leaders and downtown business leaders, and that's usually been a pretty potent one.From the beginning, Mayor Coleman has presented his proposal as a grassroots effort free from the influence of large business interests. To that end, he has held several ballpark forums to pitch his plan directly to St. Paul voters and will submit the idea for voter approval this fall.
But Coleman still has an edge which opponents lack. Danielson says supporters benefit from framing the debate. That is, if a proposal is defeated - as one was in 1997 - advocates can return with a slightly different alternative, as happened in Seattle. Chris Van Dyk led the group Citizens for More Important Things, an organization that defeated a referendum to build a new ballpark for the Seattle Mariners. He says if voters are serious about preventing public dollars from subsidizing ballparks, they have to make their case heard during elections.
Van Dyk: You need to take the key leaders that are the the key elected civic leaders who've got it in their head that these are good things. You need to put up a candidate. You need to put up hell of a lot of money behind them. And you need to give those people a run for their money on the stadium issue.Van Dyk should know. Brand-new Safeco Field opened last month. And while Mayor Coleman says he won't pursue a ballpark if voters reject his plan in November, Minneapolis and Hennepin County officials say they're ready to continue the debate if the St. Paul plan fails.
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