Don Samuels, one of the first Minneapolis City Council members to voice support for the stadium proposal, represents Ward 5, on the near north side of the city. Samuels chairs the council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Health Committee.
Earlier, we heard from two council members who oppose the city’s plans for the proposed Vikings stadium. Today, we continue with our series of conversations with council members discussing their views.
Samuels’ views in support of the plan:
MinnPost: The day Mayor R.T. Rybak made his first formal stadium presentation to the City Council, you were the only one, besides Council President Barb Johnson, to say you support the plan. How did you come to that position?
Don Samuels: We’re going through a very difficult economic time. We have a lot of laid-off workers, and when you have laid-off workers in the white community, we have a crisis in the black community.
So we have Summit Academy putting out workers who can’t find jobs and are in line behind all of the folks who are laid off. So, we’re stuck.
We have the federal government funding big projects, which we have celebrated, so we can fix roads and fix bridges, and this is an opportunity for a more local revitalization effort. It just so happens that the stadium concurs with a need, and I think that’s a great way to look at it.
“In addition to that, at the time, my preferred site — and it still is — is the Farmers’ Market because it’s in the Fifth Ward. It would be a great boost for the Fifth Ward. The proximity would give my constituents a greater opportunity to walk over there and apply for a job and get involved in the economic opportunities there.
Finally, the last reason I was excited about supporting it was the potential for healing some of the disparities and gaps in employment, set some high benchmarks for minority and women hiring in construction but perhaps, more importantly, in the operation of the stadium.
We have an opportunity to start over and create new benchmarks for minorities and women.
MP: Sounds like this was an easy decision for you?
DS: Yes.
MP: What kind of reaction have you gotten to your support of the stadium?
DS: Most of the reaction I get is from outside my constituency. I get support and opposition. It’s pretty much even.
I understand the opposition. I understand people not wanting to give tax dollars away to rich guys, but one of the realities of my life — and maybe the lives of other minority persons — is you learn to live with stuff that’s not perfect and make the most of it.
MP: So you would be a yes vote. Do you think there will be enough yes votes to prevail?
DS: I think there’s room for a slim majority. I’m not sure it would be an overwhelming majority.
“People [council members] are a little shy about investing large amounts of money downtown. There’s a certain ghost that walks these halls. After the last set of failures, there was a big sweeping out of City Hall. Six or seven new Council Members came in, so nobody wants to get caught up in that briar patch.
MP: You’re talking about Block E and the Target Center?
Samuels: Yes.
MP: Back to the reaction you’re getting to your stadium support. What are you hearing from the Fifth Ward?
DS: Some people are saying that if people want a stadium, they should pay for it themselves. [They say,] “I don’t want one. I don’t go to games. Why should I be paying for it?”
[(They say,] “They’ve got rich guys running around carrying footballs on the field, and we’re going to make higher-paid millionaires of them.” And then they’ve got this one: “This rich guy from New York who is buying expensive condos, $19-million, and we’re subsidizing that.”
So people don’t like that, and I don’t like it either. to tell you the truth.
I’m one of the 99 percent, so I don’t like the inequity of it. I’m trying to find ways, in my process of approval, to make sure the 99 percent do a little better in the process.
MP: And you see the jobs as overriding these objections?
DS: Yes. The jobs and the opportunities. And I like the fact that there’s not going to be any new pain. This is going to use money that we’re already paying [the hospitality tax]. Of course, it is our money, but it’s not going to be additional money.
And that makes it easier.That attracted me to contemplate the other benefits. I’d hate to see the team go somewhere else, the marketplace get even more fractured and downtown become less of a mecca.
There is such a thing as synergy. A concentration of attractions creates synergy. Right now, we know the synergy we have downtown.
And there are tipping points, positive and negative. If you have fewer people coming downtown, some businesses are going to be tipped out.
People say if you look deeply at the numbers that the financial arguments for have a team don’t bear out. Other people say, “Oh yes, it really helps economic development.”
I need a little more education on [those two arguments]. Both sides need to argue their point more publicly because both are equally insistent that they are right. They need to prove their points.
MP: But you are still a stadium supporter?
DS: I must say I’m encouraged by the Twins stadium — and the fact that it turned out to be such a beautiful thing. The confinement of the space led to a certain efficiency of design and effectiveness of design that is surprising and refreshing and has impressed the whole sports world.
It if was a disaster, I think, not only I but many people would say, “Let’s not throw away more money.” But that one has certainly worked out.
Two Cities blog, which covers Minneapolis and St. Paul City Halls, is made possible in part by grants from The Saint Paul Foundation and the Carolyn Foundation.
Yes, there is “new”pain.
I appreciate Mr. Samuels’ candid response, but have to disagree with him when he suggests that there’s no new pain here. He ignores both the expected state contribution and the fact that extending the current local funding option extends the pain it causes. Both limit the funds otherwise available for state and local projects of, IMO, greater value. As for jobs, there are better investments to be made there as well.
Finally, and with all due respect, learning to live with the less than perfect is not a matter of color.
New Jobs?
Someone needs to explain to Samuel and we’re just moving the team from one stadium to another, that the dome employs 19 people full time, and that his constituents aren’t going to be able to just walk down and apply for highly skilled albeit temporary construction work if this thing gets built. The stadium will create no new permanent jobs, it will simply give Ziggy and excuse to charge Samuel’s constituents more to attend a game. Why would this guy think this thing will create new jobs for his constituents?
Where’s the money anyways?
I’d also like to know where Samuel’s thinks he’s gonna get an extra $20 million a year to pay off their new $300 million debt? Rybak is talking about trading a loadstone $55 million debt for the Target Center, for a $300 million debt, or worse simply adding $300 million to the existing sports debt. Why do these guys think this is such a good idea? They’ll be spending an additional $22 million a year, and they’ll get not one new permanent job out of it. How many jobs are they saving by keeping the Viking in MPLS? Well at most it’s 19, but really for a lot less than $40 million a year we can keep the dome open for all the other events, remember the Vikings only play 8 games a year in the dome, the rest of the time someone else is using it. If we kept the dome open without the Vikings MPLS wouldn’t lose any jobs, and would be a lot cheaper.
This is getting pathetic.
Samuels sez:
“I’m one of the 99 percent, so I don’t like the inequity of it. I’m trying to find ways, in my process of approval, to make sure the 99 percent do a little better in the process.”
He’s one of the “99 percent” looking out for the interests of the “99 percent” by engaging in the redistribution of money earned by the “99 percent” to a billionaire, a member of the “1 percent”.
Mr. Samuels must think we’re idiots.
Take a hike, Don.
Gut Check
For some time I’ve been resisting my gut reaction to demands that we give significant money to the Wilfs. After all, I reasoned, no one wants negotiations with hostage takers, until they are a hostage. And no doubt, we are being treated as hostages.
It is, I told myself, a business deal: measure the costs and benefits.
The benefits extend beyond the short term jobs benefits mentioned by Mr. Samuels, They also include some multiplier for the income received by the construction workers and local businesses. I’d also include, especially if we can reestablish progressive taxation, the not inconsiderable taxes to be paid by the highly paid athletes. Some of these benefits are difficult to measure, e.g. does money spent by visiting consumers really represent a unique source or would that money be redirected from other recreational spending?
On the cost side, the costs of construction and operations are, we hope, well estimated and well negotiated. But there are other costs as well that are difficult to measure. A smaller one in Mr. Samuels’ view is the social cost of the destruction of the historic Farmers Market. Of course the market could be relocated; but can we measure the cost to the city’s soul? More importantly are costs commonly called ‘opportunity costs’. Those costs involve estimating competing returns on investments. If we spent the money proposed for the stadium on other priorities for infrastructure and education and other services, how would the return on investment measure against the projected benefits of a new stadium? The problem is that some of those sorts of benefits are very difficult to measure. We don’t do very well at measuring the benefits of education or improved policing and fire fighting for examples. But they are none the less real.
So I am, along with our representatives, back at a gut check. So I say no; no money to the Wilfs. I’m willing to watch the Vikings play in Los Angeles but more likely to shift my loyalties to the Packers. I’m willing to give up the tax revenues on the high incomes of Jared Allen, Christian Ponder, et al.
But, and here is the rub for progressive politicians like Samuels, there is no certainty that the money spent on a stadium would be redirected to better use, especially with the no new taxes crowd in charge of the legislature. We do desperately need spending in these times to increase demand and provide jobs. So whether you support or oppose the stadium, also support a broad bonding bill like the one proposed by Governor Dayton, more progressive taxation and increased spending on education and other essential services to our communities.
Gut Check
I sympathize with your gut. I’d like assuage your butterflies a bit if I could.
One of the reasons these stadium debates and subsidies have such a toxic effect on our communities is because they distort our priorities and our public discourse. When I imagine a MN without these never ending stadium and arena debates, I imagine us talking about other stuff, debating other projects and priorities. I think that without the distraction of a stadium debate we would be focusing on other issues. I also think that without this disgusting spectacle of seeing our government hijacked by out of state billionaires we could develop more confidence in our government, and demand representation on behalf of the people. There are no guarantees, but a democracy that works for it’s constituents rather than the highest bidder holds more hope for us all.
Core City Jobs
Great comments here. Only a Mall of America Phase II & Stadium would create new Jobs from the new Tourism it will bring in. They will be “core city jobs” that give people at start in life and what’s needed for the people in your district need and a Downtown Stadium doesn’t help them, so if you care…