Dear Neighbors,
Happy Friday! Let’s hope the snow holds off this weekend so we can start to look forward to spring. For this week’s update, I wanted to make sure you knew about tomorrow’s fun parade, as well as an important bill hearing in committee.
Parade Tomorrow
As a reminder, TOMORROW, March 24, there’s a short parade to honor Olympic gold medal-winning goalie Maddie Rooney! This will be a great event to honor Maddie, a 2015 graduate of Andover High School. The parade is at 2:30pm and goes from the outdoor ice arena near Sunshine Park in Andover to the Andover Community Center. If you have a youth hockey player who wants to wear their jersey and take part in the parade, that'd be great.
I hope to see you at the parade so we can celebrate Maddie and her gold medal!
Data Practices Bill
This week, I presented HF2953 in the Government Operations Committee. This bill would require the Data Practices Office (DPO) and its functions to move to the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). This move makes sense from an efficiency standpoint. In current law, when a citizen makes a Data Practices Request of a government entity and that request goes unfulfilled, a citizen can file an action at the OAH to compel the government entity to fulfill the request. Current law also requires a $1000 filing fee! Most people cannot afford this fee and government entities know this. By moving the DPO and its $1 million biennial budget for four employees to OAH, the OAH will waive the filing fee, allowing for better enforcement and transparency.
MNLARS Update
As many of you have already experienced, the state's new vehicle licensing system, MNLARS, has been a disaster since it rolled out in July. The state has already wasted nearly $100 million for this failing product. Yesterday, the legislature had to allocate $10 million in emergency funding from the Department of Vehicle Services to make immediate changes. The good news is, we included provisions that require those in charge of MNLARS to report to the legislature with their roadmap toward a working product, as well as updates prior to new funding being allocated. This process needs to be as open and transparent as possible so Minnesota taxpayers know they aren't throwing good money at a faulty system.
Local Visitors
This week I met with constituents from IBEW, Education Minnesota, Minnesota Truckers Association, and Minnesota Insurance Association. If you’re going to be in St. Paul in the coming weeks, feel free to schedule a meeting on anything facing the legislature.
Please Contact Me
As always, please don’t hesitate to call or email my office if you need anything. Session is in full swing, so there’s plenty of issues we can discuss. If you would like to get in touch, please email me at rep.peggy.scott@house.mn or call 651-296-4231.
Have a great weekend,
Peggy