Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton's "preference
for a metro-wide sales tax to help pay for a Twins ballpark
drew cool reaction Thursday from legislators, including some
from Minneapolis," according to Jay Weiner of the
Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. While there was "general praise
for her plan to use public and private money to clear and
prepare land along the Mississippi River for a new ballpark,
there also was firm opposition to her preference that a
seven-county half-cent sales tax be used to pay for
constructing the stadium as well as financing mass transit
and expanding the Minneapolis Convention Center." MN House
Speaker Phil Carruthers stated his "opposition" to the
sales-tax plan, but will name a 16-member legislative task
force to study a stadium finance plan (STAR TRIBUNE, 6/27).
SHOWN UP? A STAR TRIBUNE editorial notes that Sayles
Belton's stadium plan "had to have been influenced by the
celebrating" in St. Paul over landing an NHL expansion team.
The "contrast between the energetic leadership that had just
won St. Paul [an NHL] franchise and the indifference, even
antagonism, among Minneapolis' elected representatives
toward keeping major-league baseball in the city had become
not just stark but embarrassing" (STAR TRIBUNE, 6/27).
