Polling the Vikings stadium
One of the people in the stadium meeting held by Gov. Mark Dayton and a trio of Minneapolis City Council members yesterday morning confirms that the meeting had a interesting twist -- a "reveal," as its known in the business.
The union-backed polling shown to the council members showed support for a stadium deal "in the high 60s" in terms of percentages among residents in Ward 1 and Ward 12. Those wards are represented, respectively, by Kevin Reich and Sandy Colvin Roy, on either end of the city's eastern border.
They're two members of the reported "no" bloc that's keeping the city council from signaling its willingness to play along with the stadium deal struck by Mayor R.T. Rybak, the Vikings and the Dayton administration.
Did the numbers make a difference?
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Reich wouldn't say one way or another, but he confirmed he saw the poll results and had this observation: "It's my understanding that the numbers were an aggregate of two wards, based on non-random polling. And thus it wasn't possible to break out numbers for a specific ward."
Several union activists approached by MPR News declined to release the numbers or polling data. Colvin Roy didn't respond to a call or e-mail about Monday's meeting.
But she, Reich and the Minneapolis City Council are key players in the fate of the stadium right now. The deal faltered in the Senate's local government committee last week, and still hasn't been sheduled for its first stop in the house, the Commerce Committee chaired by Joe Hoppe, R-Chaska.
Bill sponsor Morrie Lanning, R- Moorhead, sounded a bit weary of the explanation when asked about the prospects there this week. "As I've been saying, it's not going to progress until there's an understanding with the charities and until something happens with the city of Minneapolis."