With the Vikings stadium deal collapsing, the Vikes are trying to ratchet up the pressure, demanding action on a new stadium with the threat of leaving always vaguely hanging in the background:

“There is no next year,” [vice president Lester] Bagley said. “We were told by the last governor in 2006 when the Twins bill and the Gophers bill were moving forward that the Vikings were going to have to stand down, we’ll come back next year. That was six years ago. After 10 plus years and an expired lease, we need to get this issue moving, get it done this year. Get it to the floor, let all 201, because there is support to get it to the floor, and let all the legislators get a shot at it because there is support in this building to get this done this year.”

I have news for you, Mr. Bagley, there is no this year, either. There’s not enough support for this complicated mess of a plan designed to give hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to a billionaire for his profitable business venture. So if you say there’s “no next year,” I guess it’s time for you to be going. And it’s about time, too.

I don’t think I could bear to watch Minnesota taxpayers buy your billionaire boss a brand-new stadium, even as we struggle to pay back our IOUs to our state schools. I’d rather lose the Vikings than see that happen. In fact, I’ve always found it infuriating that the Vikings expected our legislators to choose them over our schools.

I know Zygi Wilf believes he’s simply entitled to hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies. He bought the Vikings with the expectation that the taxpayers of Minnesota would write him a check that would allow him to turn a big, juicy profit on the deal. But sorry, we have more important priorities. I hope you enjoy L.A. 

For the last two years, I’ve assumed that despite its unpopularity, a Vikings stadium bill would inevitably pass. After all, the only function of government that politicians of both parties can seem to agree on is throwing money at corporate interests. Happily, though, I could still end up being proven wrong, as the bill was killed in committee yesterday:

The House Government Operations and Elections Committee failed to approve a bill that calls for funding a new stadium that would house the NFL team. The vote was 9-6 with five DFLers and four Republicans voting against the plan. Five Republicans and one DFLer voted for the bill.

That will most likely be the end of the Vikings bill — for this session at least. It’s possible that it could be revived, but given public opposition to the plan, it would be foolish for MNGOP leaders to do so. Will it come back in 2013? To some extent, that will come down to the voters; the Vikings stadium will now become a key campaign issue.

Call me cynical, but I still believe that at the end of the day, we’re going to end up financing this boondoggle. For the first time, though, it seems possible to me that it may actually never happen. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll spend that money on our schools instead.

It seems that the Vikings stadium has been inevitable for months, if not years. But for all that I’ve never doubted its eventual passage, it sure has been a tumultuous journey. Eventually, though, each successive roadblock has always melted away just at the last moment.

Yesterday was just another step toward the inevitable public gift of hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaire real-estate investor Zygi Wilf and one of his business ventures, the Minnesota Vikings:

Mayor R. T. Rybak announced Monday that a majority of Minneapolis’ City Council now backed a new Minnesota Vikings stadium, setting up a last ditch effort by Gov. Mark Dayton to persuade reluctant Republican legislators at the state Capitol to back the project.

The surprise announcement, coming after weeks of intense lobbying in Minneapolis, removed a major obstacle to a public subsidy package for the proposed $975 million stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Minneapolis would contribute $150 million to building the stadium, plus an additional $189 million to help operate it.

“Now [the] motion shifts over here to the Legislature,” said Rybak, standing at a state Capitol press conference with four City Council members. “If the Legislature acts, the City Council will act as well.”

Republicans in the legislature are acting coy right now, but I have a hard time believing that they won’t ultimately okay the plan for the new stadium. As much as  everyone seems to hate the plan, it has been advancing steadily for months, with the bare minimum of support always materializing wherever it’s needed. Somehow, the bill will pass this year. Everyone get your wallets out for Zygi!

The bill that would enable a Minneapolis Vikings stadium is out, and MPR has an analysis here. We already knew this, but I was struck anew by the insanity of one particular element:

Operating and capital costs will be covered by the city and the team once the stadium is built.

Isn’t it enough that we’re building them a brand new stadium? What in the world could the rationale be for Minneapolis taxpayers to pay for operating it? Even more than building the stadium, this is essentially just the taxpayers paying money directly into the Vikings’ annual payroll.

A few notes on priorities in Minnesota and Minneapolis:

• Over the last few years, the State of Minnesota has scaled back health coverage for our poorest citizens as we struggle to make ends meet. 
• Over the last few years, roads in the City of Minneapolis have deteriorated, and the street paving budget was cut sharply when the state decreased Local Government Aid last year.
• The State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis will be spending $736 million to pay for a new Vikings stadium, including operating costs.

That’s absolutely unconscionable. We have people in this state who can’t get basic health care, but we’re about to give hundreds of millions of dollars to a billionaire. That’s really the ultimate proof of just who our government works for these days.

Do you see any connection between these two news stories?

Your restaurant check in downtown Minneapolis comes with a higher tax than in any other major city in the country, according to a report released on Tuesday. [Star Tribune]

The city of Minneapolis would contribute $150 million in up-front costs and then $188.7 million operating and capital expenses [for a new Vikings Stadium], for a total of $338.7 million. That would come from existing Convention Center sales and hospitality taxes. [Star Tribune]

Minneapolis residents and visitors are already overtaxed paying for projects like the Twins stadium and Target Center. It’s pretty hard to justify asking them to pay for a project that will scarcely benefit the city at all.

Local financing for the Vikings stadium is a crummy idea. The stadium has little, if any, benefit to the city. The vast majority of stadium-goers will be from outside the city. They’re not going to spend money at local businesses; they’re going to tailgate in the ocean of parking-lots surrounding the stadium. The project will create jobs, but so would fixing our roads and schools, with far greater benefits to the whole city.

You all know I have no problem with taxes and government spending in general. But I do have a problem with spending hundreds of millions on a project with no tangible benefits. If it has little or no benefit to the city, why in the world would we spend over $300 million on it? 

According to the Star Tribune, negotiators are close to an agreement on a new Vikings stadium:

Minneapolis, the state and the Minnesota Vikings have reached a tentative agreement on a new, $975 million stadium on a site at or near the Metrodome and on how to divide the costs, multiple sources said Friday.

Under the preliminary deal, the city would contribute $150 million in construction costs to the downtown Minneapolis project. The state would add $398 million, while the Vikings would pay $427 million. The city also would pay approximately $180 million in operating costs over the next 30 years, multiple sources close to the negotiations said.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine why our elected officials and civic leaders in Minneapolis could possibly want this.

Residents of Minneapolis will have the privilege of paying $330 million over the next 30 years to finance the venture. That means we’ll be paying higher taxes to subsidize afternoons of entertainment for hundreds of thousands of non-residents each year, the vast majority of whom will not spend a single dime in the city.

That’s not all, though. Minneapolis residents will reap the benefits of having a wasteland of parking lots on the edge of downtown. As we drive past the vacant lots, we’ll be filled with warm feelings thinking about the fun tailgaters have in those lots for a total of 12 hours a year. As an added bonus, we’ll also get to experience horrible traffic on Vikings game days.

Minneapolis City Council members, please don’t waste our money on this. Let’s send the Vikings elsewhere.

You all know I’m against public money for a new Vikings stadium. But momentum continues to grow, so let’s forget about that for a moment and talk about the merits of the plan that’s coming together in the wake of Mark Dayton’s declaration that the Metrodome site is the only viable option.

I opposed public financing for a Twins stadium, too, but as long as we were building it I thought its Warehouse District location was fantastic. The Vikings stadium, on the other hand, doesn’t belong in the city.

Baseball (and to a lesser extent hockey and basketball) is a great amenity to have downtown. It brings 30 to 40 thousand people downtown, and it brings them often — at least 81 days a year. And while it brings a lot of folks downtown, it’s not so many that parking is a disaster. How much good it does for the local economy is debatable, but all things considered, baseball is good for the city.

Football, on the other hand, not so much. It brings 60 to 70 thousand people, most of whom want to tailgate. As a result, it requires vast parking lots. Those parking lots sit unused nearly all the time, as there are only 8 games a year. Most days, the Metrodome site is overwhelmed by empty parking lots. I can’t understand why Minneapolis would want to keep a stadium on that site.

Now that the Metrodome site is The Site, it’s too late. But Minneapolis shouldn’t have gotten into the stadium bidding in the first place. They should have been happy to see the Vikings go to Arden Hills.

The Vikings are demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Minnesota taxpayers, but they’re not above being picky over how those hundreds of millions are distributed to them. In a letter on Monday, the Vikings reluctantly agreed to help the City of Minneapolis with a proposal for a stadium on the Metrodome site, but they’re not happy about it. In fact, they implied that the city would need to pay them to get a brand new stadium on the Metrodome site:

It is imperative that your analysis of Minneapolis stadium sites include all costs associated with each site.

…the Vikings estimate the team would generate $12.3 million less each year at TCF Bank Stadium than at the Metrodome.

My heart aches for the Vikings. They would lose a small amount of revenue while the taxpayers built them a brand spanking new stadium! Oh, the humanity!

I really don’t have an opinion on a preferred site for the Vikings — I’m not trying to take a position on the Metrodome site one way or the other. But am I wrong to say that the Vikings’ argument here takes a whole lot of chutzpah?