We are wimps. There is no skating around it.

I've tepidly supported a publicly financed Vikings stadium, but I am at a loss at the way the current debate has evolved, and it seems to have everything to do with our local penchant for doing anything possible to avoid difficult conversations.

Difficult Conversation Number 1:

Messrs. Wilf, you are asking this region's taxpayers for what is estimated to be the largest stadium subsidy in NFL history (and NFL facilities are, by and large, the most expensive stadia you can build).

You are, according to the reporting of this newspaper, finessing the question of how much of your own monies will flow into the effort, relying on naming rights, seat license sales, and NFL subsidy for much of the Vikings contribution.

When this issue was raised, your minions dismissed it as irrelevant and refused to clarify which funds are actually coming from which Wilf sources.

You insist on an isolated, undeveloped site at the far end of the metro area with poor transit access, in need of substantial infrastructure remediation. The site appeals because it offers unfettered parking revenue and future development opportunities--a subject you don't want to foreclose, but don't want to elaborate on either.

What this region should be telling you is this: Beggars can't be choosers. You want to put up a fraction of the cost of this stadium, so be it.

But in that context, you cannot tell us where to put it; we will tell you. You want an equal vote, put up equal money.

Until then, cease the righteous indignation and repeated assertions of what the Vikings want. We decide, because money talks.

Difficult Conversation Number 2:

This new stadium, if built principally with taxpayer dollars, must be built in downtown Minneapolis. It is the inevitable, prudent location.

The region has invested billions in transit, parking and road infrastructure for a hub that efficiently handles hundreds of thousands of people attending sporting events each week.

There are dozens of privately owned restaurants, shops, and watering holes already positioned to cater to them that would welcome the Vikings' continued presence.

To spend millions on infrastructure elsewhere in the metro area, duplicating investments already made in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, is the most mindless kind of "where's mine" public policy.

Rather than acknowledge this reality (save for a few wise urban policy advocates), we pretend somehow the sites have equal merit.

Chicago, for all its vaunted corrupt decision making, doesn't set policy like this.

Alas, Minneapolis has not represented itself well. Our mayor, County Board and Downtown Council, in trademark reticence, couldn't settle on a site or approach or boldly advocate for the city until asked to by a legislative committee.

Perhaps they were worried about being accused of pitting Minneapolis against St. Paul. The Twin Cities has too many downtowns and sports hubs as it is.

Our insistence on treating each side of town as an individual and beloved child has resulted in two underdeveloped offspring, struggling for critical mass and the next regional handout.

Were anyone in Minneapolis to argue that the next state office building should be built anywhere but the Capitol or downtown St. Paul, they would be rightfully laughed out of the room. The same for a U classroom facility to be built off-campus as an economic development tool.

But somehow the area's leaders, including Gov. Dayton, lack the will to call the Arden Hills proposal like it is--an affirmative action project on behalf of a private business and a small slice of the region with some polluted land it needs redeveloped.

One county or municipality's willingness to near-bankrupt itself in pursuit of the stadium should not decide the outcome. The funding source must make as much sense as the location. Our process gives chaos a bad name.

The Wilfs have been committed, enthusiastic owners of the Vikings. We owe them a resolution, and the Vikings need and deserve a new stadium.

Skyrocketing construction costs mean that the Vikings proposed facility will cost 50 percent more than a nearly identical stadium opened in Indianapolis in 2008.

But let's strip away the politeness and ask ourselves if what we're doing here -- and the way we're doing it -- makes any sense at all.

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Adam Platt is a Minneapolis-based writer.