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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Jeff Howe (R)

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Update from Rep. Jeff Howe

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Greetings,

First, a quick reminder that precinct caucuses will take place throughout our state 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6. These meetings are a great way for people to be active at the local level and I encourage citizens to attend. Click here for more information, including a tool to help you find your particular precinct caucus meeting location.

In other news, the recommendation deadline for the Corridors of Commerce program is coming up soon (Feb. 5). Last session, the legislature approved and the governor enacted $300 million in new Corridors of Commerce funding – without increasing the gas tax. The new project scoring system – also approved last session – is designed to increase transparency and improve fairness in the selection process, while also addressing concerns raised by the Legislative Auditor. There is an equal 50/50 split between rural and Twin Cities Metro projects.

The big concern is that the Met Council has asked the MNDOT commissioner to change the current 50/50 split to an 80/20 metro/rural split. That is why it is important for people to weigh in on this issue before the Feb. 5 deadline to submit recommendations.

Anyone from the public can submit a recommendation and the form can be found at this link. After all the submissions are collected, the agency will then score, rank and award funding to the recommended projects. The project eligibility and scoring criteria are available on the submission web page under the “Detailed process and criteria” link. MnDOT will not submit any project recommendations in this solicitation round.

Finally, it was disappointing to see Tuesday’s announcement that Electrolux will cease production at its St. Cloud outfit the end of next year. This will be a real blow to hundreds of people who will be out of a job. Here is a joint statement other area legislators and I put out to the media today to address this subject:

“The closing of the Electrolux plant in St. Cloud is truly unfortunate, and will cause significant disruptions and challenges for families in our area. State programs are already in place to help dislocated workers and we are happy to provide assistance and information as this situation unfolds. While there is no good news out of this situation, the fact that Electrolux plans to continue production through 2019 does provide us with some lead time to examine whether there is anything additionally we can do legislatively to ease the transition for people who are impacted.”

Please reach out to me using the contact information in this email if there is anything I can do to help on this matter.

Good luck,

Jeff