"City Council insistence that public funding for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium must go before Minneapolis voters put the brakes on Mayor R.T. Rybak's plan for the Metrodome site Thursday.

Sandra Colvin Roy, whose stance on the mayor's stadium plan was previously unknown, became the seventh member of the 13-member council standing against the proposal absent a citywide referendum. That vote is required under the city's charter if the city spends more than $10 million on a stadium, but the mayor and council President Barb Johnson would like the Legislature to override it.

"Looking across the street at Occupy Minnesota and thinking about what's going on in our country right now, some of the discussions that are happening relative to government -- can we trust them or not? -- I cannot countenance going around that referendum," Colvin Roy said Thursday during a hearing.

Also Thursday, the chair of the first House committee that likely would handle the Vikings stadium plan said she would oppose any attempt to waive a referendum requirement.

"I'd like to see a referendum if it involves taxpayer money, which it undoubtedly will," said Rep. Joyce Peppin, R-Rogers, who chairs the House Government Operations and Elections Committee.

Going into Thursday's Minneapolis City Council hearing, putting a new Vikings stadium on the Metrodome site with $300 million in city sales tax revenue had gained momentum at the State Capitol and with the team's owners.

The majority council opposition is a major blow to the mayor's plan, though he maintains he can muster the seven votes to pass it. "It's not going to be a slam dunk here or at the Capitol or anywhere else, but we can see a way to get there," Rybak said."