Vikings to Amorphous Parcel of Land Somewhere East of the Metrodome?

There really hasn't been a lot of news on the Vikings stadium front these days, despite the kabuki going on in various locales:

Appealing for City Council support for a new Vikings stadium, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak surrounded himself with construction workers on Monday and said the project would create more jobs than any "single action that you can take."

Rybak and Barb Johnson, the City Council president, did little to disguise that the press briefing was an overt attempt to apply political pressure for the project, which does not appear to have the backing of a council majority. Rybak did not directly answer when asked whether he had majority support for a city subsidy package and chose instead to remain optimistic about the project's political chances.

In other words, they are talking about a project in which there is no land secured, no money secured and the political support needed to make it happen is, at best, theoretical:

"The momentum is on our side at City Hall," Rybak said. "We need to get the last couple of votes there."

But Rybak and Johnson were joined by just one other member of the 13-person City Council at Monday's briefing, Diane Hofstede.

"It's no slam dunk," Rybak said. "Clearly, we have issues."

No kidding. We could call the new stadium the Hallucinationdome, perhaps. Oops, we shouldn't forget the corporate sponsorship. Perhaps it could be the Wells Fargo Hallucinationdome or something.

Meanwhile, back in Ramsey County, "work" continues on a stadium:

On Tuesday, Ramsey County is expected to consider a $20.6 million contract for soil cleanup at the former munitions plant in Arden Hills -- the Vikings preferred stadium site -- that would cap the cost for hazardous material abatement, demolition and remediation. The action would move the county closer to buying the 430-acre site from the federal government for $28.5 million.

Ramsey County already is seeking bids from architects for the stadium.

But both actions do not deal with a larger issue: How Ramsey County would raise $350 million locally for the project.

Yeah, that money thing is pesky, isn't it? I will say this -- getting the remediation figured out for the Arden Hills site is a necessary task for the county, regardless of whether or not this project goes forward. The land will be developed in some way, eventually. Whether the land will (or should) become Zygi World is another matter, but in any event the work will need to take place.

Nothing has really changed, of course. The bottom line is the same as it has always been -- the Vikings will pay a certain amount of money to build a stadium and the state of Minnesota will have to pick up the rest. The "local portion" of the money is not going to materialize in either Minneapolis or Arden Hills. There's no reason to believe that the Minneapolis City Council is going to ignore its own charter and there's equally no reason to believe that the citizens of Ramsey County will agree to tax the snot out of themselves. So it's up to the state to come up with the money in either event. All the posturing and kabuki press conferences in the world won't change that.