November 07, 2002

New MN governor could reopen stadium debate

Jesse Ventura is gone, Tim Pawlenty in as governor of Minnesota, and Twins and Vikings execs are both cautiously hopeful this will mean they can resume their push for new stadiums. But Pawlenty's public statements, at least, have been at best lukewarm to public stadium funding: as state house majority leader, he voted against an earlier Twins stadium funding bill. And while the new governor supports a new football facility for the University of Minnesota that the Vikings might share, he told Minnesota Public Radio that "they don't need a stadium anything like an NFL stadium. If the Vikings wanted to be a partner and pay for - fully - for their share, and so that the state wasn't subsidizing their share of the stadium, I might be open to that."