When Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton announced that he wouldn’t call a special session it spelled a delay for three projects in Cook County.
For the second year in a row Tofte Township will be left without legislation that was crafted to give it special housing authority and allow it to build and manage houses that could be leased to workers who often have trouble finding places to live in the West End.
Also waiting in the wings are funds ($3,130,000) to acquire land and further develop the Gitchi Gami State Trail from Grand Marais to Cascade State Park, and through the town of Tofte. Plans to improve the boating access on the west end of the Grand Marais harbor will also have to wait until the 2017 bonding bill is passed that contains $1,050,000 earmarked for that project. If a bonding bill is indeed passed.
At midnight on May 22, the last day of the regular session, legislators announced they had failed to agree on ways to fund a transportation package and also couldn’t agree on a bonding bill that would help pay for more than one billion dollars of infrastructure improvements.
Democrats and Republicans had, however, managed to agree on a tax bill. But before Governor Dayton could sign that bill it was discovered to have an error that would cost the state over $100 million over the next three years. The governor gave legislators until June 6 to fix the error, but when they couldn’t come to an agreement he left that bill unsigned.
Over the summer the governor met with House and Senate leaders and when no one could agree on how much funding should go to the southwestern Twin Cities light rail project, which Democrats have long sought and Republicans seek to stop, Governor Dayton announced that he wouldn’t call a special session this year.
For the second legislative session in a row partisan arguments have stalled bills that offered $500 million in tax cuts and almost $1 billion in public works projects that included $700 million in spending on fixing roads and bridges.
Meanwhile Minnesotans are left waiting for money to improve bumpy roads, schools, and legislation that would allow a small township like Tofte the authority to build and manage a half-dozen patio homes.
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