On Apr 18, 2015, at 12:12 PM, Constance Sullivan <<email obscured>> wrote:
> All of us who love soccer, a much more elegant, graceful sport than the
> brutal struggle that American football is, appreciate the determination by
> this consortium of wealthy fans to build a proper stadium. Outdoors, on
> real grass, with stadium configured to soccer, not football. They are smart
> to comply with their league's will to have soccer played on a real soccer
> field.
>
> So, using the Vikings' stadium for soccer is a no-go from the start, and
> one can gauge the Wilfs' ignorance of soccer and pure monetary gain
> motivation by their absurd suggestion (which the Legislature bought) that
> an indoor football stadium with fake grass would do it for soccer.
>
> But let's let these wealthy folks continue to show up the Wilfs' greed for
> public money by standing up and paying for their soccer venue themselves.
> Be the proud owners of the venue and the franchise. What is Big Money for,
> after all?
>
> They will own the property, so they should NOT be given a permanent pass
> on paying property taxes--local taxes, by definition--nor should they get
> special dispensation on some kind of "lid" on how much they'd owe in
> property taxes. Any public subsidy to these hugely-wealthy folks through a
> property tax exemption--and taxes foregone are taxes lost that have to be
> paid among all the other taxpayers--would be like asking Minneapolitans to
> pay McGuire et al.'s monthly rent on a broadband modem, instead of their
> buying their own modem modem outright, one-time-only.
>
> I suggest that the State of Minnesota, if it wants to meddle with sports
> venues in downtown Minneapolis yet again, exempt these wealthy folks from
> paying the state's portion on the sales taxes on construction materials for
> the stadium. But NOT exempt them from paying the Minneapolis and Hennepin
> County sales taxes on those materials, which are already dedicated to
> funding the Vikings' new stadium, Target Field, and Target Center (via
> expensive renovations and constant annual maintenance).
>
> And, they should get no other special deals. There will be real
> infrastructure costs to Minneapolis beyond the construction of the stadium:
> road reconfigurations, water and sewer and other utility
> modifications/upgrades, and even--according to the advertising hype the
> Taylor-owned Star Tribune put on its front page in a pretend news item, in
> hypothetical future developments dreams, changing interstate freeway ramps
> and overpasses, etc. None of this will be free to the city or the county.
>
> I think it's highly embarrassing to see some of Minnesota's richest
> families asking that Minneapolis taxpayers pay perpetually for their
> self-indulgences. No matter how elegant soccer is. They ought to hide their
> faces.
>
> Connie Sullivan