Stadium Blog Post

A new metro sales tax along with a tax on sports merchandise would be a better way to pay for all three stadiums, various DFLers say.

April 27, 3006
Star Tribune
Conrad Defiebre

A long day of wrangling over stadium proposals in the Senate Taxes Committee yielded little progress Thursday but lots of talk about new taxes to help build $1.5 billion worth of new facilities for the Twins and Vikings and the University of Minnesota football team.

Two DFLers informally floated a plan for a half-cent sales tax increase in the seven-county Twin Cities area that would pay off the two professional stadiums within eight years while also pumping $12 billion into metro transit development over 30 years.

Republicans quickly pronounced that idea dead on arrival, and they were no more supportive of Taxes Chairman Larry Pogemiller's proposal for a 13 percent tax on all sports memorabilia to defray state costs of a Gophers stadium. With opposition from all of the GOP senators on the panel as well as from Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, Pogemiller couldn't get his Gophers plan out of the committee on Thursday.

After a meeting that spanned nearly six hours, with several long recesses for informal talks among members, Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, declared the committee "at a bit of an impasse" and adjourned for the evening.

The panel will reconvene today for more work on all of the stadium bills.

"We're going to pass a Gopher bill that will be signed by the governor," Pogemiller said.

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