As to the Hennepin County stadium tax, I’m not at all a fan of the public subsidizing billionaires, but I am happy that overruns on the tax currently fund the HC libraries, enabling all of the libraries to be open longer and on more days – funding that would not exist otherwise.

I loved the VIkings in my youth and remember the thrill of sitting at the Met in the cold of December. But I pretty much lost all interest in the NFL about 15 years ago and rarely watch now. And pro basketball just goes on forever.

I love college football and basketball although I’m still bummed about Wisky being in the other division in the B1G. Having heard WAY too much about the Cornhuskers over the years, the Nebraska addition just doesn’t excite me that much.

We live in a world where, if my community or state doesn’t value public education as much as another does, our kids get a lower level education and over time, the quality of the work force is probably not as strong as elsewhere.

We live in a world where, if we don’t build venues where the traveling cast of “Beauty and the Beast” or the Bruce Springsteen’s latest concert tour can perform and make as much money as they would by performing somewhere else, we won’t see those performances or anything like them in our communities.

And yes, we also live in a world where, if we don’t help billionaire owners build big arenas and stadiums, we won’t have big time professional sports teams in our communitites because people in other communities in other states will do so.

It’s all about priorities. If, collectively, you and your local friends don’t care about schools, vote out legislators and school board members that make school funding a priority. If you don’t want money spent on venues and stadiums, make sure you have legislators who feel the same way.

But when your communities have trouble attracting and keeping major employers… employers who look for well-educated pools of potential local workers, make “quality of life” comparisons when deciding where to locate their major operations centers (and make no mistake, companies absolutely do take that sort of thing in to consideration)… don’t go back to those lawmakers and demand that they “do something” to attract more businesses and create more jobs. They were just doing what you told them to do… not spend money on anything you think shouldn’t be publicly funded.

Those jobs will be gone. They’ll be in Denver or Seattle or some other city/state that feel supporting schools and fine arts and pro sports is important. And getting them back once they’re gone will be a helluva lot tougher than keeping them would have been when you had them.