Greetings to all,

According to the Strib today, a powerful legislative committee has allowed the stadium bill to move farther into the House. It granted some sort of exemption to allow this continued progress. Also, Lester Bagley enjoys giant cups of Starbucks coffee. Now, the article was rather vague and I'm not exactly sure what was passed. I think the exemption was just from a debate over passing the article. Instead of having said debate, the committee just waved it along. Hopefully this trend of good news continues and doesn't end up being delayed till next year.

Link here:

http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/146265875.html

EDIT: As pointed out to me by other DNers, this is to keep the House bill alive. Also, the needed exception was because the bills were so late to arrive, that the exception was required to keep any progress for the bills. The bills will not have any other hearings until after the Easter/Passover break. At earliest, this is the week of April 16th. One last bit, the White Earth Nation is still interested in helping with the stadium. They have proposed giving the state $400 million upfront and a stake in the proceeds to a new stadium in order to be allowed to open a metro casino.