Well, I guess it's not enough for us to have the Arden Hills plan the Vikings favor and the "throw crap at the wall and see what sticks" plan put out by the city of Minneapolis. . .apparently St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman wants in on the stadium action as well.
Coleman has proposed a two-cent tax on alcoholic beverages in bars statewide. He says that the tax would raise approximately $48 million on an annual basis, more than enough to fund a Vikings' stadium.
Oh, but that's not all Mayor Coleman wants to do. Here are the rest of the things that Coleman proposes to do with the money collected from this tax, if it goes into law.
-Build a new stadium for the Vikings in Minneapolis
-Move the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx from the Target Center to the XCel Energy Center
-Retiring the debt for the Target Center to take it off of the tax rolls
-Invest $75 million in the XCel Energy Center so that it can accommodate the Timberwolves, Lynx, and Wild, including a $35 million practice facility
-Build a stadium for the St. Paul Saints in downtown St. Paul (along with $27 million in public money)
-Forgive state loans on the XCel Energy Center
-Contribute $5 million a year to an amateur sports fund
-Funnel $3 million to St. Paul parks and libraries
-Finally get that Easy-Bake Oven™ that he really, really wanted as a kid, but never got
-Build a 300-mile fence on the border. . .with Wisconsin
-Destroy all the copies of Star Wars: Episode IV that show Greedo shooting first
-Two chicks. . .at the same time
Actually, I might have made a few of those up. See if you can guess which ones!
But, it doesn't look like Coleman should get his hopes up too high on this one. . .apparently the Vikings have already rejected this plan, insisting that they're going to Arden Hills. It's nice to see somebody thinking outside of the box, though.