There is one direct or maybe indirect benefit of Minneapolis taxpayers
being hit up by the Vikings (and the state legislature) for those many
hundreds of millions to build and maintain the new football stadium and the
little vanity "parklet" beside it. Verbigratia:
When Amazon oozed its invitation out to the major tech-job sectors and
cities and metros in the U.S. to cough up kazillions to "attract" that
mammoth corporation's proposed "second headquarters" in one of
those places, Minneapolis and the metro area and the state of MInnesota
made an admirably weak bid for that headquarters. Cities all over were
bending themselves into pretzels of benefits and enticements to lure the
corporation, But we sent in a piddling bid, one that indicated that we were
really tired of feeding hugely wealthy corporations more of our hard-won
riches just so they'd play their game here. The overload of subsidizing
wealthy corporate owners finally got to us! And we essentially passed on
the Amazon offer to be bought.
I know. Everybody said that it was the competing presence of home-grown
Best Buy and Target in Minneapolis/the Metro that led our reps to be stingy
with what they "offered" to Amazon.
But I'm suggesting that it also was that the local leaders knew there just
wasn't a will to spend more of our tax money on rich outlanders at this
point in time. Good for us! Amazon is already in place to set up a North
Loop branch office where they'll have between 350 and 400 well-paid
high-tech jobs in Minneapolis. No subsidy involved, just a good quality of
life, lots of spiffy techies living here, pretty good
transportation/transit/biking options, open space, great summers, and a
highly-educated ppopulace that supports some really fine theater, dance,
music, and art institution, etc., etc. We seem to have gotten this on our
own merits, which is a much better way than eating our own seed corn to win
competitions!
So, we son't get the headquarters, nor all the attendant problems like the
exacerbation of lack of affordable housing, lack of housing in general, and
intense gentrification that Seattle--and whoever Amazon picks for the HQ
II--are facing. Looks like a win to me.
Connie Sullivan
Como, in Southeast Minneapolis
On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 1:10 PM, james graham <
Rest of post
<email obscured>> wrote:
> The answer is really simple. The outstate politicians didn't care
> because it was Minneapolis tax payers being betrayed by their elected
> officials NOT "OutState" nor the Suburbs. Since Minneapolitans were paying
> the bills and Minnesota reaping the benefits, why NOT. And they had that
> charlatan RT Rybak leading the way. That might be too strong a word but I
> have not made up my mind about RT, whether he was just a self centered
> foolish person or really was the charlatan he appeared to be. So much for
> Peudo-Progressive Pseudo-Liberal Yuppi politicians.
>
> The sad thing is that Minneapolis did NOT need to spend almost a BILLION
> dollars to keep the Vikings in Minnesota. The Native tribes were
> absolutely eager to pay the bill as long as they could build a casino along
> side the Stadium. Of course it would not have been in Minneapolis.
> Minneapolis of course would then have had several new blocks of very
> valuable and developable, tax revenue producing, downtown development
> opportunities. Too good a deal for the small minded politicians and adding
> nothing to their egos and their stamp on the history of Minneapolis. They
> could have cared less about the deal being good or not, they did not have
> to pay the bill. In this case it was an eager buyer spending someone
> else's money who made the deal. And you know what they say about "eager
> buyers", "If you have an eager enough buyer, he will spend anything to buy
> even a barrel of bullshit!" Well RT and the Council bought that barrel for
> the tax payers of Minneapolis in violation of the Minneapolis Charter. And
> in my opinion they each should have been prosecuted for "Malfeasance of
> Office" and thrown out for willful failure to perform their "fiduciary
> responsibility" under the Minneapolis Charter.
>
> But think about it folks, Minneapolis cannot even keep the Drug Dealers
> and Prostitutes off of the corner of Franklin and Tenth Avenue. Cannot
> properly clean my streets or repair then (even when I am paying most of the
> bill for it)! Yet we have politicians spending a BILLION dollars on a
> playground for a sports team when someone else would gladly have paid for
> it. AND we can't even FIRE them. AND to rub salt into the would they
> secretly give themselves an outrageous raise in pay to reward themselves
> for either their mismanagement or malfeasance. I have not decided which
> they were rewarding themselves for. :-(
>
> So welcome to Pseudo-Progressive heaven that Minneapolis is. By the way
> the real people who pay the bills for it are the poor working class renters
> whose rents go sky high to pay for those taxes. The people who do not work
> live in the subsidized housing that pay WAY LESS property taxes than the
> poor workers who have to rent at regular rates. Working renters and
> Workers with lower middle class home-ownership are really the ones who
> always seem to get screwed by Psuedo-Progressives such as RT Rybak and the
> Minneapolis City Council.
>
> Sometimes I really do wish Ed Felien had an actual "Revolution" happening
> rather than just that meaningless political rhetoric that seems to not even
> bother our Minneapolis system. But then ED does support the idea of
> returning to two year terms to MAKE the politicians be more responsible to
> the PEOPLE. That is about as concrete as you can get but unfortunately
> THAT revolution just has not had any traction against the political jello
> that is Minneapolis politics and political hacks who keep the jello going.
>
> If I did not have such wonderful Grandchildren I think I would sell all my
> property and flee to Costa Rica. But I do; and thank you and Happy
> Mother's Day to those wonderful mothers of those wonderful Grandchildren.
> You keep me in Minneapolis.
>
> The City I loved and have fought for all these years. That wonderful
> City sure deserves better politicians.
>
> Jim Graham
>
> Jim Graham
> Ventura Village, Minneapolis
> About/contact Jim Graham: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/jimgraham1
>
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