Mayor R.T. Rybak's argument for funding a Viking's stadium in Minneapolis got some ammunition from the state Capitol on Monday.
Rep. Greg Davids, the Republican chair of the House Tax Committee, introduced legislation that would terminate the city's sales, restaurant, liquor and lodging taxes in 2020. Rybak has repeatedly cited that very possibility as a reason to support his Vikings stadium plan, which redirects those taxes over the longterm.
The bill will be the subject of a hearing in Davids' committee on Thursday, three days after it was introduced.
The taxes (1/2 percent sales, 3 percent restaurant, 3 percent liquor and 2.62 percent lodging) currently pay debt and operating expenses for the Convention Center. Rybak hopes that once the debt is paid in 2020, some of the money could fund a stadium and Target Center debt and repairs.
But eliminating the taxes, the mayor wrote on his blog, would leave the Target Center and Convention Center "financially unsustainable."
Some say that Minneapolis should just walk away from the table and not be part of this discussion. But this point of view turns a blind eye to reality — that the Legislature controls Minneapolis' taxes and Minneapolis' fate.
The existing taxes that Council President Johnson and I want to use for property-tax relief, for Target Center and the Convention Center, as well as for a new stadium, are ones that the Legislature has the power simply to take from Minneapolis at will.
If we were not at the table fighting to solve these long-standing stadium issues, the Legislature could — and in all likelihood, would — simply apply our taxes entirely to a new Vikings stadium, leaving Minneapolis homeowners out in the cold and still paying for Target Center debt. This would also leave the Convention Center and Target Center financially unsustainable, damage our strong hospitality economy and create even more of a burden for Minneapolis taxpayers.
