Dan Erhart has a word of advice for Ramsey County when it comes to building stadiums for the Minnesota Vikings: Do not expect things to be fair when competing with Minneapolis or Hennepin County.

Erhart chaired the Anoka County Board for much of the time when the county negotiated with the Vikings to build a publicly-subsidized stadium in Blaine, only to see the Vikings walk away from the project in late 2006 and look instead toward Minneapolis.

"I was disappointed," said Erhart, recalling what happened. "I moved on."

Last year, the Vikings partnered with Ramsey County to build a stadium in Arden Hills – but the stadium debate has now again shifted to a location in Minneapolis, the state's largest city where the team has played for 30 years.

On Wednesday, Ramsey County officials met with the Vikings to gauge the team's continued interest in Arden Hills given Gov. Mark Dayton's insistence that a public subsidy package could only pass the Legislature this year if the project were built at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.

While the team has said Arden Hills remains its preferred site, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf said Wednesday that he was "optimistic" that a new stadium could be built at the Metrodome.

Six years ago, Anoka County was pushing for a $675 million stadium whose price tag rose to more than $800 million. The proposed Arden Hills stadium would cost $1.1 billion.

Erhart said he vividly remembered a phone conversation with Wilf as the Anoka County deal was falling apart. "I can just hear him saying on the phone one night at about 9 o'clock," said Erhart. "He [said he] couldn't do the deal" because of rising construction costs.

When the Vikings announced in November 2006 that the team would participate in a study to build a new stadium at the Metrodome, Steve Novak, Anoka County's chief stadium negotiator, was however clearly upset. "I have no idea what they're doing," Novak said of the Vikings as the Anoka County stadium plan disintegrated.

"Handshakes in Anoka County work pretty well. I guess we're discovering that maybe handshakes in New Jersey don't work quite as well," Novak said at the time, referring to Wilf's home state.

Erhart said he always realized that Anoka County – like Ramsey County now – did not have the tax base or political pull to compete with Minneapolis and Hennepin County. "You can start saying, 'No, it's not fair,' " he said. But "you got to know that when you go into this thing.

"Hennepin County [and Minneapolis] can do this quite easily," said Erhart. "Ramsey County, Anoka County or other counties will have a much harder time putting the finances together" because they have a smaller property tax base.