The MN House "overwhelmingly voted down a revamped
ballpark proposal Thursday night, adjourned its special
session and possibly triggered Twins owner Carl Pohlad's
agreement to sell the team" to NC businessman Don Beaver,
according to Weiner, deFiebre, et al. of the Minneapolis
STAR TRIBUNE. Pohlad: "I'm shocked." Twins President Jerry
Bell: "It appears that we're out of options." The House
adjourned "sine die" at 9:00pm CT, "shortly after a last-
ditch stadium bill failed on an 84 to 47 vote amid
objections that the numbers to build a $356 million ballpark
simply didn't add up." With the House voting to end the
special session, the Senate, which had worked on its own
version of a stadium bill Thursday, "can go no further.
Senators were expected to return to the Capitol today to
call it quits officially and go home" (STAR TRIBUNE, 11/14).
Jay Weiner reports that the "last-gasp effort" to get a
stadium bill out of the House "failed ... partly because the
bill's finance plan had a $2 million gap." In addition, the
finance plan "was deeply dependent on attendance figures
that the Twins have achieved only once in their 37-season
history. If attendance hadn't averaged about 3 million fans
per season over the life of the 30-year bonding period of
the ballpark, then the finance plan -- reliant on user fees
-- would have faced troubles" (STAR-TRIBUNE, 11/14).
HOT-BUTTON ISSUE: MN House Speaker Phil Carruthers: "I
have been in the Legislature for 11 years. Not even
abortion comes close to this issue in terms of emotional
response and citizen response." Columnist Dan Barreiro
writes the "door has been opened by the Legislature, and now
it is simply a matter of whether Carl Pohlad wants to walk
through it" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 11/14).
CAROLINA, HERE WE COME? Mike Solomon, Exec Dir of the
NC Baseball Committee: "People will realize now that we
weren't blowing smoke. We have a team." But Beaver said in
a statement: "I feel we still have to be cautious about
getting too excited" (Foon Rhee, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 11/14).
