David Drake: I, STADIUM: Part 6 - No Voter Referendum, Welfare for Billionaire Pohlad, Session Closed

Monday, May 22, 2006

I, STADIUM: Part 6 - No Voter Referendum, Welfare for Billionaire Pohlad, Session Closed

The Minnesota Legislature wrapped up its business over the weekend and today officially close this year's session. I don't reside in Hennepin County so their tax hike - the Corporate Welfare for Carl Pohlad and his Twins Baseball Team - really won't affect me. It's rare that I'm buying something in Hennepin County. No offense intended, I just don't find myself within its borders that often.

I feel badly for the people in Hennepin County, for they got a stadium rammed down their throat without the opportunity of a referendum to vote on the public funding. There is a county law in place to allow them a vote but the state legislature circumvented that county law.

The Twins adamantly opposed a referendum because they suspected, correctly, that voters would deny them public funding. If I lived in Hennepin County I would be campaigning and blogging daily to vote out of office every elected official that voted in favor of subsidizing Billionaire Pohlad.

Another funny and strange item is that while the Twins and Gophers were awarded their public financing for their stadiums, the legislature didn't manage to find time to pass property tax relief which, they told us, was something that was a priority for them in this session.

Well heck, I guess the taxpayers just don't have a well organized and well oiled Lobby Machine the way the Twins and the Gophers do. It's nice though, isn't it, that these elected officials found time to pass welfare for billionaires and a university that has a ONE BILLION DOLLAR ENDOWMENT in the bank. I guess the politicians know where their priorities are, don't they?

Carl Pohlad, Jerry Bell and the entire Twins organization foisted yet another transfer of wealth on the people of Minneapolis and the suburbs of Hennepin County, most of which will never attend a Twins game.

Are Pohlad and the Twins organization good corporate neighbors? Not in my estimation. They used threats of selling the team to another state and underhanded maneuvers to get their taxpayer assisted stadium pushed through the legislature. And they're proud of it!

The Twins promise, in this new deal, to stay in MN and play in the new stadium for 30 years. Well, this promise is as good as the paper that it's written on. It can be taken for what it's worth - a piece of paper.

When the Twins organization attempted to renege on past promises, they used the threat of contraction to try to get what they wanted. Why would anyone believe that their new promises are any more sincere than their prior promises?

Look, I love the NHL and I love the NHL MN Wild team. But if they used threats of moving the team in order to get corporate welfare, I'd be first in line saying see 'ya later, get the hell out of town. I can't believe more Twins fans didn't feel the same way.

So Twins fans succumb and comply to threats. That's both sad and pathetic.

I wonder what other types of businesses would have been eligible for corporate welfare by the same politicians that sucked Carl Pohlad's 90-year-old sagging and wrinkled teats and pushed through this tax hike on the people of Hennepin County? I wonder if a major oil company could have received a similar type of deal. I wonder of a tobacco company would have received similar treatment by the same political troupe.

The elected Liberal politicians, the ones most vocal against any type of corporate welfare, simply subverted one of their most basic political beliefs, turned their backs on the people who elected them, and voted for this tax increase - and again, I can't repeat this often enough - without voter referendum.

Without voter referendum. Without voter referendum. Without voter referendum. Please remember that phrase all you voters in Hennepin County.

Will the voters remember this come the next election? Damn, I hope so. Eva has a List of how each legislator voted right HERE. I suggest everyone dissatisfied with how this entire sham was enacted bookmark her link or print out the page and keep it handy come the election this November. The politicians, both democrats and republicans alike - who voted for Welfare for Billionaire Pohlad - need to be held accountable and voted out of office.

Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty has stated he will sign the Welfare for Pohlad bill. Well, that's all fine and dandy. I have news for the Minnesota Republican Party when they phone me this fall, urging me to support and vote for their Conservative candidates. You're not getting my vote. I'll do what I can to see that any politician who voted in favor of the Twins Stadium is booted out of office.

Next year, in the legislative session, we can look forward to the Vikings and their Millionaire Owner Zygi Wilf, petitioning for taxpayer's money via tax increases to help pay for a new NFL stadium. "Well we can't give corporate welfare to the Twins and not the Vikings," will be an argument used by proponents. And I'm sure we'll hear the tired and hackneyed false argument of how "the Vikings add a quality of life to the state."

And all I can say is you gullible and stupid people who buy into that rhetoric are a sorry bunch indeed. I have a bridge for sale, it's located in Brooklyn and I really do have the Title and Deed to it. Want to buy it? Because I'm selling it.

Finally, how much longer will the voters in Larry Pogemiller's ward keep falling for his tricks? How much longer will you allow this man to fool you? He's reelected again and again, over and over. Why? Why do you fall for it every time?