[Speed Gibson,
Friday March 24, 2006 at 10:13pm]
U of M Rosemount?
The University of Minnesota doesn't get its first option for an on-campus outdoor football stadium. Now we find they own land in Rosemount they're willing to sell toward the deal.
They in fact own 2,840 acres, about 4.4 square miles. By comparison, the entire suburb of Robbinsdale is only 2.8 square miles. Columbia Heights is 3.4 square miles. Hopkins is 4.1 square miles. What could the U possibly need with that amount of land? Agricultural research? Do that outstate, closer to the industry, and where land is cheaper. Yet another campus, as if MnScu doesn't have the territory covered twice over already?
If I was in the Legislature, I'd demand a full list of all such assets before considering another stadium proposal. Their first proposal clearly wasn't the best for Minnesota taxpayers, and they knew it.
They in fact own 2,840 acres, about 4.4 square miles. By comparison, the entire suburb of Robbinsdale is only 2.8 square miles. Columbia Heights is 3.4 square miles. Hopkins is 4.1 square miles. What could the U possibly need with that amount of land? Agricultural research? Do that outstate, closer to the industry, and where land is cheaper. Yet another campus, as if MnScu doesn't have the territory covered twice over already?
If I was in the Legislature, I'd demand a full list of all such assets before considering another stadium proposal. Their first proposal clearly wasn't the best for Minnesota taxpayers, and they knew it.
If the U gives or sells or leases or grants access to land it owns to the state, isn't it really the state's (therefore the people's) land in the first place?
It's a simplification on my part, but this seems like a big shell game with the same pile of tax money in order to make it look like the U has a stake in what'll wind up being a free stadium.