Dear Neighbor,
Now that my fingers have thawed enough to type, I figured I’d send a note thanking all the people who made last Saturday’s Polar Plunge at Green Lake so successful. The attendance was great and some people – like the group of 52 dressed like playing cards who made the jump – really got in the spirit. A handful of area House members participated, along with some metro-area colleagues who made the trip to Spicer and took part. This is a great cause and I was pleased to support the Special Olympics.
As for news from St. Paul, it was good to see a number of area residents visit St. Paul for Dairy Day at the Capitol. This event provides people from the dairy industry to advocate for a variety of issues pertaining to their line of business. One thing we are hearing is how tough it is for smaller farms to find good help. Younger generations are not always interested in carrying on the family farm legacy, but we did hear about one area case where the son is getting into it.
Some of our tax policies, like our estate tax and property taxes, are disincentives and we are looking for ways to improve that scenario. There was a press conference this week to discuss a House bill which more uniformly applies tax rates to rural and city properties.
Rural landowners can pay up to 10 times more than city residents for construction levies offered by schools, cities and counties. This bill would exempt farmland from capital bond levies, creating a more consistent system. State law already recognizes the house, garage, and one acre for school operating levies. The same guideline would be applied to farms, exempting the acreage and limiting the liability to a farmer’s house, garage, and one acre of land.
I look forward to following this proposal through the process.
Another property tax bill in the House is one I introduced this week will provide veteran service organizations a break on property taxes (reducing them by one-third). We have lost 100 Legion or VFW clubs in our state the last 10 years and those groups are having a tough time getting veterans to join their groups.
A huge factor is that we have a gap between older Vietnam veterans who are more likely to join service clubs and younger veterans who are transitioning into civilian life and remain on the sidelines.
We need to consider ways of bringing up the number of younger veterans who join these clubs, but the bill I’m introducing would buy some time and help keep them viable until memberships take hold. Service clubs are strong community resources and we cannot afford to lose more.
I will keep you posted on these and other developments at the Capitol. Until then, please stay in touch. The feedback I have been receiving this session is outstanding and it helps me continue doing my best to represent the people of District 13A.
Good luck,
Jeff