When we reported that the Vikings were going to be introducing a stadium bill very soon to the current legislative session, the mood was understandably one of optimism and happiness.
However, when some of the people that have seen the bill are using words like "badly timed" and "badly designed" to describe it, it's sort of tough to keep that optimism going.
Here are some of the highlights. . .or lowlights, to be more accurate. . .of what's been said about the bill thus far, thanks to ESPN's Kevin Seifert.
We'll start with Kurt Zellars, the current Speaker of the House:
I hate to sound like a broken record, but until they have a site, until they have a plan, until they have a partner, it's awfully hard for us and the Vikings to get to that point.
Moving on, now we have House minority leader Paul Thissen:
The budget comes first, and if we're not willing to raise taxes for our schools and police and firefighters, it's very hard to see raising taxes to build a Vikings stadium.
Since one of those guys is the Speaker of the House and one of them is the House minority leader, they're on opposite sides of the aisle, so the bill is already seeing pushback from both sides of the political spectrum.
So they've got that going for them. . .which is nice. (Except not really.)
Hopefully this is just a lot of rhetoric, because if these men and women don't get something done during this session, they may not have an opportunity to do so the next time the legislature gets together.