MPR: After the Vote

After the Vote
By Michael Khoo
October 7, 1999

In less than a month, Mayor Norm Coleman's plan to build a new Twins ballpark in downtown St. Paul will face a crucial test at the polls. If St. Paul voters approve a new sales tax to fund the stadium, the debate will move to a leery state legislature. Even if the referendum fails, the discussion isn't necessarily over.

MAYOR NORM COLEMAN is asking St. Paul voters to approve a half-penny increase in the city sales tax to pay for one-third of a new Minnesota Twins ballpark. The state and the team would split the rest of the $325 million cost. If all goes according to Coleman's plan, the momentum from a successful referendum will persuade a skeptical legislature to join the bandwagon. The problem: Polls show nearly 2-1 opposition among St. Paul voters. And DFL State Senator John Marty of Roseville says even if Coleman does pull a rabbit from his hat in November, it won't carry much weight with lawmakers.

The Pac-Bell Stadium under construction for the San Francisco Giants is paid for with mostly private funds. Voters rejected a taxpayer-financed stadium four times.

Marty: If they come in with a last-minute advertising blitz, which I expect them to do, if they come in there outspending their opponents 20-1, 30-1 and it narrowly squeaks by, I don't think that's going to make a big difference at the Capitol, because frankly most people realize it wasn't a solid test. But even then, I don't think they've got the votes.

A bruising stadium debate in 1997 remains fresh in the minds of many legislators. Emboldened by voter sentiment, opponents of the plan confidently call it "dead on arrival." And it's not clear the proposal will ever arrive. If the referendum should fail, Coleman has pledged to call it a day.

Coleman: I do know that this is our chance, a chance for this city. If this doesn't pass in November, then we're really out of the picture. And I don't know what the future holds for Major League Baseball in this community.

Though the mayor won't hazard a guess at the Twins' future, Sam Grabarski would like to take a shot. Grabarski is president of the Minneapolis Downtown Council. While the spotlight has been on Coleman's initiative, Grabarski says west-metro officials have been quietly preparing an alternative which will ensure the debate continues regardless of the referendum's outcome.

Grabarski: Our ideas about finding a permanent facility solution for both the Twins and the Vikings is going to move forward whether or not the St. Paul referendum passes.

Grabarski anticipates recent budget surpluses will prompt the Legislature to consider reducing the statewide sales tax. If the tax is cut, Grabarski reasons the metropolitan area could replace it with a local-option sales tax pegged for infrastructure improvements, including light-rail transit, affordable housing, and, yes, new stadium construction.

Grabarski: So those three goals alone might create strange bedfellows, but they might actually create a coalition where people see enough value in what is going to be obtained to want to see everybody succeed.

Abrams: That is dead. That will not pass in the 2000 session.

Ron Abrams is a Republican state representative from Minnetonka. He also chairs the House Tax Committee, through which any stadium proposal must pass.

Abrams: I'm opposed to a tax-rate differential. I'm opposed to light-rail transit. I'm opposed to stadiums. And I'm opposed to affordable housing. And I know of no member of the Legislature - not a single member of the Legislature who supports it.

With so much hostility to the various stadium plans, both in the public and at the Capitol, it's tempting to consider the issue settled. But veteran stadium-watchers know better. In cities across the country, sports-facility proposals have been soundly defeated only to return and ultimately prevail. That's because, as Twins president Jerry Bell says, declaring the public coffers off-limits doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Bell: We used to compete with the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Indians, and the Texas Rangers, and we did quite well. We had higher revenues than they did, we had better teams, we did fine. Now, we're not just competing with the baseball teams anymore. We're competing with the state of Maryland, because they built the ballpark. We're competing with the county in which Cleveland is located, because they built the ballpark. And we're competing with the Metroplex in Dallas-Ft. Worth, because they built the ballpark. We can't compete with the city, the state, and the baseball team.

For More Information
See a timeline of important events in the debate over a new stadium.

See MPR Online's Stadium Wars section.

Bell says a spate of publicly funded ballparks across the country makes it necessary for the Twins to seek a similar subsidy from state and local government. And as part of an effort to drum up support for the St. Paul plan, a delegation from the city visited three heavily subsidized, so-called "renaissance" stadiums in Denver, Baltimore, and Cleveland. But Tom Montgomery, founder of the opposition group "FANS for St. Paul," noticed a curious omission from the itinerary.

Montgomery: I didn't see any stadium tours organized by the pro-stadium tax people going out to San Francisco.

In fact, there weren't any trips to San Francisco, where the Giants' new Pac Bell Ballpark is being built with roughly 95 percent private money.

Montgomery: That's who I think we should be emulating, not all the other teams that have fallen in for what is essentially blackmail by the professional sports teams.

Twins president Bell says the Giants are doomed to failure and will require a public bailout much like the privately-built Minneapolis Target Center received. But the Twins may be forced to develop an innovative financing plan. Public funding remains a long-shot and threatening to move the team no longer seems credible, especially after the previous stadium debate. Senator Marty:

Marty: Remember in 1997, they said if we did not fund a stadium before the end of November, the Twins would be on their way to the Triad area of North Carolina. That was it. We called their bluff. And they didn't move.

And if the team wanted to move, there may not be anywhere for them to go. Bill Lester is the executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission which owns and operates the Metrodome.

Lester: There is no place in the country right now that's baseball ready. Not Las Vegas, not Mexico City. There are no options with a baseball, Major League Baseball-capable stadium sitting there empty. If the referendum fails in St. Paul, there aren't very many options left for the baseball team.

Which explains why stadium proposals continue to emerge in the face of growing public resentment. University of Minnesota Speech Professor Edward Schiappa, who has studied the stadium debate, says even if the current efforts collapse, Minnesotans should be prepared for more ballpark proposals in the future.

Schiappa: The only way voters can, sort of, make this go away, ultimately, is to vote for it. If they vote against it, the odds are that in another year or so, this very same issue may be before us again in some altered form. Where the public benefits by voting "no" is that usually the packages that are offered down the road getter better and better from a public standpoint. There's more private financing, there's less non-user fee kind of financing associated with it.

In fact, San Francisco's privately-funded ballpark didn't materialize overnight. The deal was approved only after Bay Area voters rejected four previous requests for public subsidies.

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