On Met Council, we get cronyism, not reform

Star Tribune ^ | 4-15-15 | DAVID OSMEK

[TurboZamboni]

In January, the 89th Legislature convened to begin its work. With the elections behind us and the House under Republican leadership, we opened the session with a renewed sense of bipartisanship. Many suburban legislators, myself included, had high hopes for one particular bill that would inject some common-sense into a major concern of local city councils — the Metropolitan Council. The Met Council is an unelected body that has the power to tax and spend over $1 billion every year and inject itself regularly into local government decisions. It has the authority to dictate (among other things) where new trains and high-density “affordable” housing should be built in your neighborhood. It also has the power to withhold state and federal aid if cities don’t comply with its demands. As recently reported in this newspaper (“4 counties aim at Met Council,” April 7), four counties have now engaged a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to wrestle federal funding streams away from a Met Council that has become increasingly unresponsive to their constituents’ needs. Counties should not have to waste your tax dollars like this, but it’s a direct result of how powerless your elected officials are against this unaccountable regional government. Last month, Gov. Mark Dayton had the opportunity to support a reasonable, bipartisan effort to provide an incremental amount of local control over the Met Council — the common-sense reform bill I introduced to give local city councils some say in who represents them on the council. Instead, Dayton chose to side against providing a local voice into the appointment process, even sending one of his employees to testify against it. His loyal DFL senators killed the bill before it had a chance to get to a full vote.

[kingu]

Mmm, Democrats, suppressing the power of the electorate since, well, forever.

[jacquej]

Thank you, Turbo, for posting these articles about the twin cities and Minnesota.

I am new to Minnesota, and the politics here totally confuse me. So many seem to be lost in the delusions of the last century, believing in fantasies of days gone by.

[Finalapproach29er]

The Met Council is wicked;it has wrecked a good part of the metro area. It’s power needs to be curtailed considerably. imo

[NTHockey]

Who is the idiot that came up with the idea of Met Council? Judging by the article, city and county politicians should be out of a job. The Council does all their work, except campaigning.

Talk about wasting taxpayer money!