Top News

St. Paul (AP) ― Hours after the Minnesota Twins ballpark plan emerged largely unscathed last week from an influential House committee, team president Dave St. Peter worked to spread the news.

St. Peter phoned in live to a Friday television broadcast of the Twins-Chicago White Sox game to give the urgent update. The radio crew also broadcasting the game read an e-mail from St. Peter on the air.

"Keep the faith," St. Peter signed off.

The bill got waved through another House committee Monday night and could receive a floor vote as soon as Wednesday.

Through game broadcasts, mass e-mails and telemarketing calls, the Twins are pushing hard to get fans involved in the stadium deliberations at the Legislature.

Their effort was on display Thursday, when hundreds of fans decked out in Twins garb showed up at a public hearing in Bloomington.

They tailgated before the hearing and a group aligned with the team handed out hats, shirts and foam fingers to people on the way in. When the committee rejected a move to put a Hennepin County stadium sales tax to a referendum, Twins fans in the auditorium let out a spontaneous cheer.

Veterans of the decade-old stadium battle notice a difference in public sentiment, and the team is on the brink of winning public subsidies to build an outdoor ballpark in downtown Minneapolis. The project's cost is pegged at $522 million, three-fourths of which would come from the increased sales tax.

The House Ways and Means Committee gave the proposal its last hard look before the expected floor vote. By a 17-15 margin, the committee voted to maintain the referendum waiver; the entire bill prevailed on a 18-16 vote.

The bill still awaits Senate consideration and a majority vote there before a supportive Gov. Tim Pawlenty can act.

The Legislature approved a stadium plan in 2002, but the financing model fell through. In 1997, opponents crashed the Capitol phone system when so many dialed in to tell legislators to say "no." Lawmakers did.

"The anger, hostility was unbelievable," recalled Rep. Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul. "You had a grassroots network that's seemingly disappeared. I've received very few comments against the current Twins bill."

Entenza said calls that ran 25-to-1 in opposition then are coming in 10-to-1 in favor today.

"The proponents are energized," he said.

St. Peter said in an interview that the team is encouraging fans to be vocal, but it's been a two-way street with fans seeking ways to get involved.

"Our job is simply to help alert people, but also steer folks who are looking to push us over the top," he said.

Dann Dobson, a St. Paul property manager and head of the No Stadium Tax Coalition, agreed the opposition has waned.

"We can not duplicate the outpouring of 1997," he said. "It's not a statewide tax anymore. So it's going to be very hard to get someone in Bemidji or Brainerd or Duluth fired up about a tax only in Hennepin County."

Legislative opposition is weakening -- partly because of the limited reach of the plan but also because lawmakers want to dispense with an issue that has nagged them for so long.

Fifteen-year Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, has a reliable "no" vote on stadium bills. This year, he'll shift to the other column. He said his constituents are backing him up because the plan doesn't take any money from the state treasury.

"They did what I asked," he said. "They came back with a plan that met my objections."

Davids added, "This is a vote for local control. This is a vote to allow Hennepin County to make a decision."

Dobson said he and his allies are already looking ahead to the fall election when they will go after people who backed the Twins bill. Dobson, a DFLer, said he won't give either party a free pass.

"Someone needs to do some spine transplants up there at the Capitol," he said.

-------

The Metrodome opened in 1982.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)