Dear Neighbor,
The 2018 session began this week. Most everyone seems upbeat and ready to make this a productive 12 weeks before we adjourn.
Much of the week was spent on procedural steps and re-orientation to get the Legislature back up to speed. The pace will pick up in a hurry as committees get down to real business next week and start discussing bills and taking on the issues.
I’ll keep you posted as those things develop but, for now, I want to pass along a couple of local notes.
First of all, a big thank you goes out to those who put on this year’s BRRRmidji Polar Plunge on Lake Bemidji. Proceeds benefit Northwoods Battered Women’s Shelter, Support Within Reach and the American Indian Resource Center, all great causes. The Pioneer snapped a picture of me just as reality started to set in on my decision to jump. They ran that pic on the front page of the Pioneer but, if you happened to miss it, click here and scroll to the second picture in the photo gallery just below the headline.
On another note, I recently had another productive visit to BSU, this time to hear the latest on the proposal to replace Hagg-Sauer Hall with an academic learning center. This project is up for consideration on this year’s bonding bill and I will continue advocating for it at the Capitol.
The regional transportation working group which has formed continues meeting. The Bemidji and Walker chambers of commerce each can provide minutes from meetings and other information to those who are interested.
On a final note, there is more disappointing news on the MNLARS fiasco I covered in last week’s update. In summary: Around $100 million in taxpayer money has been spend building a new state vehicle licensing/registration system that does not work. The governor and his administration asked for $43 million more to fix it. The Legislature asked for more information on why this was necessary, but received no response. Now, this week, the governor came back and asked for $10 million.
There is no doubt that we need to have MNLARS up and running. But, as I keep saying, taxpayers also deserve (and rightfully demand) transparency and accountability from their government. We can’t just keep writing checks to make the mistakes go away.
Have a good weekend and I’ll be back with more from the Capitol soon, especially as committees start diving into the issues.
Sincerely,
Matt