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Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority Named

EDIT: SWFLSkol did a pretty good rundown of this situation in the FanPosts. My apologies for not linking back to it sooner. -Chris

Just over a month after the passage of the bill that will build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton have named the group of five people that will oversee the development of the project.

The chairperson of the committee will be Dayton's deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs, Michele Kelm-Helgen. The other members of the committee will be as follows:

-John Griffith, the executive vice president of property development for the Target Corporation
-Duane Benson, state legislator and GOP Senate minority leader
-Bill McCarthy, president of the AFL-CIO Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation
-Barbara Butts-Williams, dean of the School of Education at Capella University, Minneapolis

McCarthy and Butts-Williams were appointed by Rybak, while the other three were appointed by Dayton.

I wish I could give you a big, sweeping biography on all of these individuals. . .but, truth be told, outside of the Star-Tribune article linked above, I don't know anything about any of these people. If anyone has any additional information about any of these folks, please feel free (and encouraged) to leave it in the comments section.

The stadium is scheduled to open in time for the 2016 NFL season. The design and prep work, according to the team, will take a year or so, and then construction will get underway.