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January 09, 2012
News report: Ramsey County Vikings plan is toast
Twin Cities TV station KSTP is reporting that "sources" (not even "sources close to the deal," just "sources") tell it that "Governor Dayton and legislative leaders have told Vikings officials the Arden Hills site is 'unlikely to work'" for a new football stadium. If true — and it doesn't appear to be corroborated elsewhere — this would leave the three proposed Minneapolis sites as the team's only options. And those three will presumably be whittled down to one by this Thursday, Dayton's deadline for each local government to come up with one stadium plan and stick with it.
Meanwhile, KARE-TV reports that the Ramsey County petition drive to force a referendum on any stadium spending has kicked off, with a goal of 17,000 signatures. No word on how the petition-gathering is going, other than that opposition is "building."
All of which is just further evidence that last month's rumors of an imminent Vikings stadium agreement were severely off-base — as I Dislike Your Favorite Team notes in somewhat stronger language in the early front-runner for stadium news headline of the year.
Legislators do not seem to be interested in financing a stadium in a location that doesn't leverage the billions spend on transportation infrastructure to date, including light rail, commuter rail, and highways.
I stopped by the Ramsey County Library yesterday where petitioners were gathering signatures. They said that 90-95% of people asked were signing. I'm not a Ramsey County resident, so couldn't sign, but it does seem like the popularity of their petition could be enough to finally get the Arden Hills site off the table.
Posted by Ed Kohler on January 9, 2012 12:58 PM