(Radio Iowa) — The Iowa Senate has waded into the controversy over construction of a new 19-and-a-half million dollar football stadium in Des Moines. Last month the Des Moines School Board unanimously approved the plan to partner with Drake University on a four-thousand seat stadium to serve as the home field for the football teams from four Des Moines area high schools and for the Drake men’s and women’s soccer teams.

More than seven-thousand people signed a petition calling for a public vote on the stadium project, but school officials say it didn’t meet the legal requirement for a referendum. Senator Jake Chapman’s bill seeks to force a public vote on the project. “Are we going to deny 7000 people’s right to be heard at the ballot box?” Chapman asked. “It is shameful what has happened.”

Senator Zach Nunn of Bondurant says there’s better use for local option sales tax money than for a football stadium. “Have we fixed every roof in a Des Moines Public School?” Nunn asked. “…Have we gotten to a point where students in North or East or Lincoln or Roosevelt have the ability to learn from home with the technology that this money was intended to provide?”

Senator Bill Dotzler of Waterloo says the high schools involved have significant numbers of minority students.  “It can be viewed as another slam of our minority populations of pulling something that is so central to a high school, their football field, and putting it in a different area of a community,” Dotzler said.

A senator from Ames says state law allows schools to use sales tax revenue for athletic facilities and the legislature shouldn’t try to micromanage local school board decisions. The bill passed the Senate last (Thursday) night on a 47-to-two vote. It’s unclear if the bill has a future in the House.