The four men of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners want the one million residents of Hennepin County to pay for improvements for a privately-held entertainment business. On AUGUST 29 they could choose to impose a 30-year sales tax upon one million people just because a private businessman wants a nicer place to play ball.
Does it matter that there is a Minnesota State law requiring that the residents of Hennepin County vote on whether to accept or reject this tax? Does it matter that the majority have repeatedly said that they want the law upheld and that they want the referendum vote that is required by law?
The referendum law was enacted in order to prevent just the type of abuse of power that these four men are about to implement. An abuse of power that is the direct result of spending too much time behind closed doors, in secret meetings, glad-handing and back-slapping with the Billionaire Boys Club, and conspiring to find any means possible to get the most taxpayer money with which to fund a private entertainment business. There has been nothing sportsmanlike, nor democratic, about the 8-plus year battle the Minnesota Twins have waged against the Taxpayers of Minnesota.
Maybe if our elected officials had been spending just a fraction of that amount of time listening to We, the People, they would have a better grasp of what the honorable, democratic, and law-abiding process should be in this matter. But they have lost sight of democracy, and they are planning to ignore the law and thumb their noses at the taxpayers.
If The Stadium Tax Bill is allowed to pass without a referendum, it will be a first-ever, precedent-setting exemption to the local sales tax referendum law - State Statute 297A.99 (Local Sales Taxes) Subd. 3.
Simply put, the Stadium Tax Bill stands for abuse of power and taxation without representation.
And, on AUGUST 29, we could be forced into a 30-YEAR SALES TAX over which we had no say!
Please do not allow this to continue unchallenged. 