MinnPost/Jay Weiner

Mayor R.T. Rybak

It seems unlikely that even Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak took very seriously Thursday's "final proposal" the city placed on the desk of Gov. Mark Dayton.

While Ramsey County lugged a 148-page report to the Capitol, Minneapolis showed up with little more than a minuscule outline. Even Shakopee, which threw together a proposal in a few hours last Saturday afternoon, managed to come up with a 20-page report that included a couple of snazzy graphics.

Minneapolis?

Rybak's report was so incomplete as to make it appear that the mayor is totally isolated from the process and the powerful downtown interests in Minneapolis who want to see the stadium constructed on the western edge of downtown, preferably the Linden Avenue site.

Instead, the Minneapolis proposal, such as it, is focused on the Metrodome site.

"You could read what happened as lacking a coordinated effort or [as] strategic," said Minneapolis Council Member Gary Schiff of Rybak's strange report.

'A strategic move'?
Most seem to believe it was strategic.

Yes, the mayor and City Council President Barb Johnson favor the Metrodome site and present it as the least expensive stadium alternative.

But there also is a desire in Minneapolis to leave the door open for the Vikings. The team still insists that it wants only to end up at Ramsey County's Arden Hills site. But if that ultimately fails, Minneapolis wants the Vikings to feel they have some say in where the stadium would be built.

Sam Grabarski heads the Minneapolis Downtown Council, and only a few weeks ago, his organization unveiled a 15-year plan for downtown. The plan put the football stadium on one of the two west end sites.

Grabarski said that little attention should be paid to Rybak barely mentioning the west side sites in the city's "final" proposal to the governor.

"We've had very cordial working conversations with the mayor," said Grabarski.

The big issue, he said, is that the stadium deal gets done, and that means making the Vikings at least somewhat happy.

"For now, they continue to say they want to work only on the Ramsey County site,'' Grabarski said. "They did issue a letter about additional costs associated with the Metrodome site." (The Vikings state that rebuilding at the dome site would mean $67 million in hidden costs for such things as lost revenue from playing at the smaller Gophers' stadium.)  "They have not issued a letter on the Linden Avenue site.''

Getting comfortable with downtown site
The lack of a letter about Linden Avenue is, in Grabarski's mind, a good sign — a sign that the Vikings are "getting comfortable with a downtown Minneapolis site."

Assuming the Vikings would end up feeling  "comfortable'' with Linden Av., there still would be huge issues to plow through. The mayor's desire to pay for the city's portion of a stadium with an extension of the hotel and entertainment tax being used to pay off the convention center, is far from a done deal with at least this conservative legislature.

In his mini-proposal, Rybak suggested, in a sentence, that a casino on Block E could be the backup plan for funding if the extension of the convention center tax doesn't fly.

The casino is not exactly a sure thing. For the moment, it's unclear if legislators have the desire to pass any form of gambling expansion, and they know less about the casino than other forms of gambling that have been proposed for years.

But it's not just at the Legislature where the Block E casino sets off passions on either side of the gambling issue.

Grabarski said of the Block E casino: "It's the most singularly divisive issue the Downtown Council has. We have trouble finding a middle position. So far we've taken no position at all."

All of this — casinos, leaving space for the Vikings to maneuver, the Linden Avenue alternative — is sort of between the lines in Rybak's proposals, according to those who see his brief proposal as strategic.

Giant hurdle remains for Ramsey County plan
There was little left between the lines in the Ramsey County proposal.

But there remains one huge obstacle: local funding. The Ramsey County Board wants to fund the Arden Hills stadium with a liquor, food and entertainment tax.

This "no-new-taxes" Legislature has made that wish seem impossible.

Watching all of this rumble along through a seemingly unending process is Dan Erhart, an Anoka County commissioner.

"The best deal the Vikings had was with us," said Erhart.

 In 2005 and 2006, Erhart thought Anoka County was just inches from sealing a deal with the Vikings.

"We wouldn't be going through any of this now," Erhart said. "We'd be done. The Vikings would be in a modern, state-of-the-art stadium."

What made the Anoka project superior to anything we're seeing now, Erhart believes, is the stadium's location near a large, regional airport and the massive Blaine soccer complex. Combine those two things and you had not only the Vikings, but the possibility of major international soccer events.

But two things happened concurrently, Erhart believes, as he looks back at the $1 billion dream.

Vikings owner Zygi Wilf began to get nervous about the overall price tag in Anoka County just as he was being intrigued with the idea of purchasing the Star Tribune property and building a stadium and development on the Metrodome site.

At the same time, Gov. Tim Pawlenty refused to invest any political clout or emotion into the deal.

"I think if the governor would have simply said, 'Let's get this done,' the Vikings would be in Anoka County now,'' Erhart said.

They're not. And he believes they're destined for Minneapolis.

"Hennepin County can do things like this easier than anyone else," Erhart said.

Next steps
What happens next?

The reports are now with the governor and Sen. Julie Rosen and Rep.

Morrie Lanning, lead legislators on stadium legislation.

Along with Ted Mondale, head of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, and a handful of other legislators, Dayton, Rosen and Lanning will hold individual meetings with supporters of Arden Hills, Minneapolis and Shakopee starting next week.

That working group will try to reach consensus around funding mechanisms and perhaps even a site. The alternative approach would be to try to figure out funding and then create a separate authority to pick a site.

"We're looking for bipartisan support," said Lanning, who acknowledges that "it's uphill" to any sort of finish line.

Doug Grow writes about public affairs, state politics and other topics. He can be reached at dgrow [at] minnpost [dot] com.