Unless the owners start negotiating in good faith, five years of work for the ballpark could go down the drain, said County Commissioner Mike Opat. Opat says the county "won't be there," and Twins ...officials said they are not sure if they'll go forward with the unveiling. For now, the county will delay its scheduled Feb. 27 votes on major issues involving the ballpark's land acquisition, a development agreement with the Twins, and approval of contracts with the architect and the builder, Opat said.
"I started calling Bruce Lambrecht 'Ned Devine,' " said Dean Dovolis, referring to the movie "Waking Ned Devine," about a man who hits the lottery, then suddenly dies and townspeople pretend he's ...still alive so they can collect the winnings. "I said, 'You don't exist anymore, Bruce. You're invisible.' " "He said, 'Where'd you go to school?' " Dave Albersman recalled. "I said Harvard. He said, 'That's good enough for me.' " Within a short time, Albersman was busy creating drawings of the stadium for Lambrecht. Even though Mark Stenglein has distanced himself from Lambrecht, he nonetheless saluted Lambrecht's persistence. "I have sympathy for him," said Stenglein, who said he had coffee with Lambrecht six weeks ago. "Lambrecht's not greedy. He's a true believer in baseball."
The county's first legal undertaking today will be to determine whether the landowners will agree that the stadium's construction, under state law, serves a "public purpose." If the landowners ...challenge the "public purpose" of the project, particularly at this late date, the move would almost certainly lead to a protracted -- and costly -- legal battle that would probably prevent the stadium from opening in 2010. Mike Opat said that the property owners have not given a clear answer and that, without such an agreement, "we won't have a project." During the first six months of last year, when the stadium awaited approval from the Legislature, state records showed that nearly $33,000 was spent on lobbying by Twinsville, a group directed by Bruce Lambrecht that wanted the project on the property. The year before, state campaign finance records show, Twinsville spent $40,474 while Lambrecht was the principal lobbyist, and an additional $90,280 in 2004. Richard Pogin dismisses reports that the landowners now want between $40 million and $60 million for the property, but said the county is undervaluing it. "What they're really saying is, 'We're afraid of what the fair market value of the land is,' " Pogin said in describing the county's negotiations.
