By Rep. Paul Anderson
Last week was busy at the Capitol in St. Paul, with visitors filling the halls of the State Office Building making their way to appointments with legislators.
I visited with a group of township officials who had reserved a meeting room in the Capitol building because all the available meeting spaces in our office building were in use. The upcoming presidential primary was a topic of discussion, with several wondering why their political party preference would be disclosed as a result of voting in the primary. The ballot each voter requests will be made known to the political parties. In addition, two parties whose platform deals mainly with the use of marijuana have also gained major party status in Minnesota. They, too, will receive details on what ballots people requested when voting.
Because of that concern, a bill was heard in the House last week that would curtail the information stream from the primary. If the bill becomes law, each political party would receive information only on those who voted in that party’s primary. Even though the bill cannot become law before this week’s primary, it could be enacted in time for the voter information to be affected. To me, it seems a bit too quick to change legislation that was passed less than a year ago. However, I wouldn’t mind if the entire idea of the presidential primary were ditched. One reason is the cost, estimated to run between $12 million and $15 million, which the state is set to cover.
Township annual meetings and elections are coming up next week. One of the main items that town boards administer is the maintenance of their roads. It’s a challenging job, as townships receive only a small percentage of gas tax receipts in Minnesota. Yet, township roads account for nearly 40 percent of all road miles in the state. In all, there are approximately 55,000 miles of township roads in Minnesota, with 1,300 of them located within District 12B.
MAT, the Minnesota Association of Townships, has provided other interesting facts about townships. Statewide, there are 1,781 townships, with 34 of them located right here in District 12B. Nearly one million residents of our state live in townships. In District 12B, the number of folks residing in townships is just over 21,000, which represents 53 percent of the total population of the district.
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A bill that would allocate another $30 million to the state’s Border to Border broadband program passed out of the Greater Minnesota Jobs and Economic Development Committee last week. That’s on top of the $40 million put into the program last year. Those dollars have already been awarded for projects scheduled for completion soon. Our district fared well in the latest round of broadband grants. Three area projects were funded: one in the Lake Mary area southwest of Alexandria, another near Forada, and the third in the industrial park area of Melrose.
In anticipation of possible spring flooding, that same committee heard legislation that would replenish the state’s disaster fund. Because of near-record flooding last year, the fund is in immediate need of $9 million to cover additional costs from last year. FEMA increased those damages from $40 million to $76 million, and since the state is obligated for 25 percent of the federal estimate, that comes to $9 million.
We went into winter with a full moisture soil profile, in addition to near-record levels in lakes and rivers. Much depends on the rate of spring thaw, but early estimates called for the potential of severe flooding. However, the ground has very little frost and we haven’t had much snow in the past few weeks. If this gradual warm-up continues and we don’t get too much additional spring precipitation, we may escape major statewide flooding.
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