Minn. Senate approves user fees to spare team's direct stadium expense
The Vikings were successful on first down, but there are three to go before the franchise's proposed stadium bill reached the governor's desk.
The next hurdle between the franchse and the $975 million stadium it pines for is Tuesday's Minnesota state Senate vote after the state House voted 73-58 in favor of the financing proposal to construct a replacement for the antiquated Metrodome.
The Senate revived and approved an amendment that would include user fees for luxury suites, parking, select stadium services and possibly tickets and merchandise, to reduce the funding the state requires the Vikings to raise. The bill sponsor, Julie Rosen, said a 10 percent user fee would apply to suites and all parking within one-half mile of the new stadium.
A similar vote to tax tickets, concessions, merchandise and parking -- identified collectively as user fees by the House -- to offset state construction costs failed by a 74-57 vote Monday night.
The House-approved bill is dramatically different than the version debated Tuesday in the Senate. It calls for the team commitment to increase from $427 to $532 million, a notion the team immediately scoffed at, with vice president Lester Bagley saying ownership isn't prepared to increase their out-of-pocket costs by $105 million as Monday's vote recommends.
House members were volleying proposals and made dramatic changes to the structure of the bill, which proposed payments of $150 million from the city of Minneapolis and $400 million from the state of Minnesota. The rest of the money would come from the team, and the House wants to ask for the Wilf Family to kick in approximately 51 percent of the final sticker price, Bagley said.
But House lawmakers included passage of an amendment, by a vote of 97-31, to increase the price the Vikings would pay -- and the state would save -- by $105 million. Pat Garofalo, a republican, introduced the amendment. However, the Senate plans to vote on the original competing version.
If approved Tuesday, final negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers would be the next step to forward the stadium plan and potentially set the wheels in motion for construction to begin as soon as the end of 2013. The Vikings' lease at the Metrodome expired, but the team agreed to play there in 2012.
Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, a longtime supporter of the proposal, and several Vikings players including quarterback Christian Ponder, participated in a rally outside the chamber hoping to push forward the proposal for a nearly $1 billion stadium project at the site of the Metrodome.
Should the bill fail in any of the next three votes in the legislature, it's expected the franchise will consider relocating, as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell warned in a joint session two weeks ago.
