Dayton: Bring on stadium, bonding

Gov. Mark Dayton was out pressing the flesh today, in addition to his administration's missives to the Legislature.

His message: Get to work, everybody.

He spoke to a construction worker labor rally in the rotunda, and appeared at a Building Jobs Coaltion roundtable discussion later.

He mentioned a new Vikings stadium at both stops.

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Dayton talked about financing to construction workers:

He proposed to finance a stadium "with the proceeds from surcharges and souvenirs and food and beverages paying off those bonds that are issued. Not a dollar of general fund. Not a dollar that wouldn't be generated except for the economic activity that wouldn't be generated without that project."

Later, he underlined the urgency of the Vikings stadium.

"It is a jobs bill, if we structure the financing the right way to make it a people's stadium. But the jobs, several thousand, according to the reports I have seen, that would be provided for three years of construction is very much putting people back to work and putting people back to the building trades work. The word we heard today is unemployment in the building trades is 30, 40, 50 percent."

He also put in plugs for his half-billion dollar bonding bill.

"Some say in the Legislature that they're going to just do a bonding bill for emergency projects. It's very clear, when you talk to people that have lost their job and their home and their health care that they are in emergency conditions just as someone who might lose their home to a flood. To me these are emergency situations that call for a bonding bill. I keep saying again and again how important I believe it is, and how it's fiscally responsible, and how it'll put thousands of people to work throughout Minnesota. And I hope that eventually, sooner rather than later, there will be a positive response from the Legislature. But that's for the legislative leadership to determine, and ultimately they are the ones that are going to be accountable for their constituents looking for work."