ST. PAUL -- The Minnesota Twins celebrated the 45th anniversary of their first Twin Cities game Friday by winning committee approval for a new ballpark.
At least two more House committees must look at the bill before it reaches the full House, but many predict it will pass there more convincingly than the 15-13 vote in the House Taxes Committee.
That committee was expected to give the bill its toughest test.
"It's the best (Twins) bill the Legislature has had," said Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead.
The Taxes Committee on Friday ended three days of testimony on the $522 million, 42,000-seat outdoor stadium proposed for downtown Minneapolis.
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Three-fourths of the construction cost would come from a 0.15 percent increase in Hennepin County's sales tax.
Friday's meeting was back in the Capitol complex in front of a few dozen lobbyists after a Thursday night trip to a Bloomington school, where 700 rowdy spectators heard committee members vote down a proposal to require Hennepin County voters to approve the new sales tax. Stadium supporters said a public vote requirement would kill the plan.
On Friday, committee members rejected a proposal to spread the sales tax burden across all of Minnesota and require a roof be put on the ballpark.
"I think we ought to put out a first-class stadium," Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, said about his desire to require the Twins and Hennepin County to install a retractable roof. "As long as it's going up, let's do it right."
There is talk that even though the ballpark would likely be roofless, heat could be injected into the seats. And some seats will be covered by an overhang.
In the 10 years the Twins have been asking lawmakers to approve a stadium, team officials have flip-flopped on the need for a roof. At first, Twins President Jerry Bell said, they felt it was needed. But at more than $140 million, a roof priced itself out of the proposal, he added.
Bell promised not to ask lawmakers for roof funding in the future.
House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said he hopes the Twins bill gets a full House vote Wednesday or Thursday.
