Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission Chair Ted Mondale is "convinced" a Vikings stadium bill will be introduced in the state Legislature "in the next few days, with a good chance of passing later in the session," according to Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. Mondale: "My understanding from the bill authors is we're getting close. ... It's to the point where the majority over at the Capitol now have their bill together and they're going to bring it all out." Mondale "believes the great success of Target Field will help and that not one politician who voted for Target Field lost his elective seat." He "doesn't believe that anybody at the Capitol is going to put state money into an open-air stadium," but if a deal "was cut between the team and a local unit of government to build a stadium without a roof, the Metrodome ... could last for a long time at a cost of" $7-8M per year. Mondale added that profits from naming rights to a new facility "would have to be shared or all go to the state." Mondale said that he "knows Ramsey County is trying hard to bring the stadium to Arden Hills and officials are meeting with the Vikings." Mondale: "I know Hennepin County is looking at something and I think Minneapolis is talking, too. So I think there's three sites that are kind of in play. Maybe there's a way to have one ready by May 1 or May 15, when the bill gets done." Mondale added that there are "positives to all three sites" the team is considering (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 3/31).
DEBATE RAGES: The AP's Tara Bannow noted Vikings Assistant Dir of Public Affairs Jeff Anderson "stressed the various ways in which the team gives back to the state as he debated other experts Wednesday about whether public funding should be used to build a new stadium" for the team. Former Minneapolis Federal Reserve Research Dir Art Rolnick "rejected Anderson's assertions that the Vikings create more jobs, participate in more civic engagement and generate more tax revenue." None of the speakers "disagreed with the assessment that the Metrodome needs to be replaced," but the "question was who should pay for it even as the state faces an estimated $5 billion budget deficit" (AP, 3/30).
