Projected deficits and unalottments notwithstanding, talk of a new Vikings stadium continues at the Legislature, and now House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher wants to bring that discussion out of the Capitol corridors and into public view. She's proposing a Purple Ribbon Panel.

The Star Tribune reports in a blog that Kelliher — one of a dozen DFLers running for governor — wants to bring the stadium talk out in the open, even though she doesn't see it as a top priority.

Andrew Wittenborg, a spokesman for Kelliher, told the paper: "More and more Minnesotans are asking about the stadium situation. We really need a public place to talk about what happens next."

The paper adds:

Wittenborg said Kelliher, who was not immediately available for comment, believed that a special panel would be a "way to protect the public" because many conversations regarding the stadium "tend to happen just behind closed doors."

"If the conversation is going to go forward, it should go forward in public," said Wittenborg. Kellliher, he added, believes "this is not a top priority for the state. . .she sees a lot of other priorities — education funding, health care access, things like that.

"But I don't think there's any escaping that this conversation [about a new Vikings stadium] is taking place" already, he added.