Forum Post: Minnesota and California supporters Protest now.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 4, 2011, 6:12 p.m. EST by DKAtoday
(33802)
from Coon Rapids, MN
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
This is current and is something you can immediately address.
Contact the NFL and your State Legislature.
Why?
The Vikings ( and NFL ) want a new stadium. They want Public money to build it. If they can't get Public funding in Minnesota they are threatening to move the team to LA, which would then mean LA Public money.
The NFL is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, a fabulously rich private business. Tell them to do their own funding.
In fact everyone who is a sports fan ( and even those who are not ), everywhere in the USA contact the NFL and tell them to stop abusing the Public.
Who? You! The Public.
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They do things like this all the time.
"Big sports" gets the state to use eminent domain to take people's homes & business so they can build stadiums. Then, in a few years, they abandon them and leave the town with a big white elephant.
The Atlantic Yards case in Brooklyn was a recent one.
QUOTE:
"The New York State Court of Appeals has ruled that the Atlantic Yards basketball project can go forward as planned, dislocating the residents in the Brooklyn, NY area where the stadium is to be built. In essence, the decision means the state can evict you from your own home, seize your property, and give you what it believes is a fair price without your consent to build a sports arena. The power of the state is breathtaking.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
New York's highest court ruled that it is lawful for the state to seize private land for use by private developers, clearing a hurdle for a new basketball arena and marking a victory for local governments hoping to spur development.
Tuesday's 6-1 ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals allows the contentious $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn to proceed. The project, being developed by Forest City Ratner Cos., could eventually include office towers and apartments as well as an arena for the NBA's New Jersey Nets.
The decision is a blow to private-property owners who have argued that they are defenseless in protecting their ownership rights once a government deems their land necessary for eminent domain, or the "public good."
And as if they didn't get enough public money for this project:
"The wide-ranging federal complaint that accused state Sen. Carl Kruger and others of corruption on Thursday also shed light on the persistent attempts by one of New York City's biggest real-estate developers to secure more government subsidies for its signature project.
In a December 2010 conversation caught on wiretap, Mr. Kruger told a staff member that an executive at Forest City Ratner Cos. had asked him for $9 million in additional state aid for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, where a Nets basketball arena is under construction.
The request for the money—which would help fulfill Forest City Ratner's obligation to rebuild the Carlton Avenue Bridge—was not fulfilled, according to the complaint filed in Manhattan Federal Court."
Again another seriously good reason to support the OWS movement. If we can win back the government those people who lost their homes should be given massive compensation from the sports league.
hey, didn't MN just get a new baseball stadium? with a "retractable" roof for bad weather (wondering what the upkeep on that is...who got the contract on that one?)
really, if people like their sports so much (as i do), why do they need a new stadium every couple of years? unless it's really broken down and 'dangerous ' maybe. i thought the dome has a couple year left in it...
i suppose that whole, will "bring in new business in", but again, if you want too see a live game, and your a BIG FAN, it shouldn't matter, right?
field of dreams, baby. field of dreams... lol
Yah the twinks got a new stadium, no roof though. We'll see how popular it stays especially if they continue in their slump.
The Vikings stadium? It just got a new roof due to last years storm collapse and they have also got new turf. With the Gophers in their new stadium and the Twinks in theirs, the Vikings got what they said they wanted, a single use stadium. But now it's not good enough for them.
Fine they want a new stadium, let them build a new stadium. But with their own money and the NFL's.
These teams have been doing this for years and it pisses people off. We had this problem a few years ago (St. Louis) with the Cardinals; they threaten to move if we don't buy them a stadium. Unfortunately, they got their way. I don't get it. Maybe it will be different with the Vikings. I say boycott the games if they try to pull that shit. It needs to stop.
"were gonna move if we don't get a new stadium!!!" wtf
why? like whats behind this? if 'they', (whoever they is...) want a new stadium, why don't they pay for it themselves...lol. god knows they make enough to pitch in, right? stop putting it on the local (or is it state?) tax payers. some of which prob don't give a shit about sports...
Exactly. Our old stadium was designed by a famous architect (now deceased, I think) and was basically a historic landmark. They tore it down anyway. Don't get me wrong, I like the look of the new one, but I definitely don't believe the taxpayer should pay for it, especially since the franchise can usually afford it themselves and not all taxpayers are sports fans.
If they can get one city to build them a stadium but another won't, why wouldn't they go to that city. Many cities are dying to have an NFL team. It is just business.
but what about team loyalty!!! lol
Thanks for the support.
The only problem is that they will likely get away with it again, either in Minnesota or if not then in California. The thing that gives me any hope that this will end now is the fact of the Occupy Movements. If everyone (supporters) e-mailed the NFL to protest their abuse of Public money and copied to their legislators the same message, it would be another nail in the coffin of the 1%'ers.
Create sign and send petitions. The more inputs we have the better. http://occupywallst.org/forum/create-sign-and-send-petitions/
A site to submit issues have them collected, collated and submitted. www.lobbydemocracy.com
OUR BANNER/OUR CAUSE
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. July 4, 1776
How dare they make DEMANDS.
I imagine business owners want the investment. People have gone to sports arenas for a very long time. The tax dollars these bring in pay for the arenas with the boat loads of tourists who come to towns. I don't even like sports, but live in a tourist driven town and know small businesses make lots of their money from sports tourists.
That is no excuse to demand Public money, especially now in this economy when budgets for education, and health care among others are being cut due to a lack of funds. Whats truly sick is that there is nothing wrong with the stadium they have right now.
yep. it was fine. yes, the games bring in tourist, but i think that would happen regardless. so you might get a couple of new people who are just coming out to see a new stadium, but the diehards will never leave...
occupythestadiums