The Pioneer Press Editorial Board came out with its perspective on the Met Council today.  The closing sentence  is good to keep in mind. 

"The long-standing concerns about the Met Council’s scope, governance, transparency and accountability have always been, and remain, legitimate. Only persistent, principled pushing, from various angles, can ensure they’re addressed."

I would suggest that part of that persistent push is a zero-based review of the Met Council, its structure and its performance.

My contribution to that is here.

UPDATED: The full report, with narration and the related PDF, is now available here.

Here in Minnesota, the perennially controversial Twin Cities Met Council is once again in the news. Over the last six months a task force took a look at how we might update the Met Council so as to address some of the concerns expressed about it.

I attended almost every one of the task force's public meetings, and I thought quite a bit of information was missing from the conversation. So I set out to gain a much clearer understanding of how the Met Council compares to its peers across the country.

As part of that I looked in detail at the Met Council's peer organizations in over 20 of the largest metro regions in the country. I compared and contrasted how the Council stacks up on measures of legitimacy, scope and outcomes, and reviewed alternative structures to our 100% unelected regional authority.

The full report will be out next week, with the usual narrated presentation and PDF available. The bar chart to the left gives you a small hint of what I found.

Stay tuned.

​Other than McCain and Flake, we've seen next to nothing from anyone in the Senate about NextGen and the FAA's indifference to citizen complaints. Despite the fact that there are multiple ongoing lawsuits about the matter, and the FAA reauthorization bill is being actively considered.

A letter from Senators Feinstein and Boxer to Administrator Heurta at least is movement. Of course, what we want is active support for McCain and Flakes bill, and support for Rep. Meng over in the House.