Dear Neighbor,
Enjoyed touring some businesses in the district with Sen. Torrey Westrom Wednesday. Thank you to the folks at Land O’Lakes plant in Melrose and at the Liberty Tire Recycling facility in St. Martin. They were good visits and Sen. Westrom and I both appreciated the chance to learn more about those operations and the work they do.
In other news, there appears to be positive development on what has been, to date, a very problematic rollout of the new Minnesota License and Registration system. The state has contracted a private outfit, FAST Enterprises, to develop the driver services portion of MNLARS. Reports show FAST Enterprises has successfully implemented driver and vehicle systems in 11 other states and has a strong track record of providing high-quality, customer-focused IT services to the state of Minnesota.
This company’s previous work is reported as having been on-time and on-budget, a key factor since we are inching closer to the federal government’s October 2018 deadline for Minnesota to comply with Real-ID licenses and ID cards.
For quick background, the federal government has been phasing in increased ID standards in an effort to heighten security following the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The final phase of Real ID implementation appears to be the one people seem most concerned about since it impacts people’s ability to board commercial, domestic flights. Minnesota’s current standard ID does not meet Real ID guidelines.
The Legislature acted earlier this year to allow Minnesota to come into compliance, but numerous issues have arisen during the implementation. The hiring of a private firm with experience in this area looks to be a positive step that should improve our state’s chances of having things in place by the deadline.
As implementation continues, no further action is required by citizens at this point. Feel free to travel as usual using your current ID to board flights until the overhaul is complete and new IDs have been distributed.
Sincerely,
Paul