On March 24th, 2017 Rep. Jason Lewis (MN-CD2) sent a letter to US Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao asking her to deny the full funding agreement to the Twin Cities' Southwest Light Rail line. 

Lewis references the Minnesota Legislature's excellent letter from March 17th, which delineates the many reasons why this funding should be denied. 

This is part of Lewis' developing efforts to reel in the out-of-control and unaccountable Met Council, which is our local "regional authority" that is doing its best to plan every aspect of your life, like it or not.

It's great to have a strong voice for local control in Washington. Let Rep. Lewis and your Minnesota legislators know that you support these efforts to...

Stop the Train!

On March 17th, 2017 the Minnesota State GOP caucuses in the House and Senate sent a 14 page letter to US Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao asking her to deny the full funding agreement to the infamous Southwest Light Rail line here in the Twin Cities.

It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to many people that the unaccountable Met Council, which plans and operates the transit system,  has been barreling along spending tens of millions of dollars on SWLRT without any certainty as to how the rail line's capital expenses would be funded, much less ongoing operating costs. But that's in fact the case, as the Federal Government has yet to approve $895 million in capital funds of the line.

The excellent letter from GOP legislators points out that the Met Council has circumvented the legislature in order to get the rail line project this far, violated its commitment to not use the obscure funding mechanism known as Certificates of Participation,  and it appears that the Met Council is in violation of US code that prevents the cannibalization of bus service in order to fund new light rail. 

The business case case against SWLRT is even more stark, as the Met Council's own projections show that they expect to generate only 6,500 new-to-transit riders per day as a result of the nearly $2 billion in capital spending!

Southwest Light Rail is a boondoggle project crafted by a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, led by the only board in the country that is completely filled by patronage positions.  

Let you legislators know that you support their efforts to bring fiscal sanity to transportation and transit planning in Minnesota.

Stop The Train!

On March 1st, in response to constituent requests, Rep. Jason Lewis of the 2nd Congressional District put forth a resolution to use the Congressional Review Act to reject the December 2016 Obama rule expanding the geography of planning organizations like our infamous Met Council. Rejecting this rule would prevent any future agency from issuing a substantially similar rule without Congressional legislation.

Most immediately this would this do away with the Met Council's power grab into Sherburne and Wright counties in the Twin Cities area, which was "oh by the way" announced by the Met Council at a Minnesota House committee hearing in late January.

Long term this resolution would be a major blow against the administrative state. Specifically, the Obama rule's intent is to create homogenous "planning" districts that sprawl across state lines, and obliterate local and state rights.

Passing Rep. Lewis' resolution would be a much needed, and long awaited blow against the Met Council, and the Left's plan to centralize our local and diverse communities.

You can learn more about the December Obama rule by viewing my presentation here.

Interested in telling your legislators what you think about the Met Council?

On February 15th at 430pm, citizens have the opportunity to testify before a joint session  of the House Transportation Policy and Regional Governance and the Senate Local Government committees. 

Wednesday, February 15th
4:30 PM
Bunker Hills Activity Center (Oak Room)
550 Bunker Lake Blvd, NW
Andover, MN 55304

Contact Abby.Loesch@house.mn or 651.296.8875 to sign up to testify.

Let your legislators know what you think about the least accountable, highest spending regional "planning" organization in the country.  A few talking point ideas...

1. GOVERNANCE:  If we are going to have a regional planning authority, could we at least have one that meets the federal requirement for it to be composed primarily of sitting, elected officials? (Today we get by with an exemption from the feds, courtesy of the Obama administration's recent "review".) We need people in charge who are accountable to the People, not appointed bureaucrats who dictate actions to citizens. The legislature can fix this.
2. SCOPE: The Met Council has by far the broadest scope of any "planning" authority in the country. It owns and operates the transit system, public housing, parks and wastewater systems. No other region comes close. Break apart the planning function from ownership and operation of these activities so that a single agency can no longer dictate actions to local communities by withholding funds or service as part of the "planning" process.  Again, the legislature can fix this.
3. STOP THE MADNESS:  A last minute rule from the Obama administration mandates that Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), e.g. the Met Council, MUST expand their geography to include the entire Urbanized Area (UZA) in a region. This means the Met Council now has its fingers into Sherburne and Wright Counties. Furthermore,  the rule mandates that the MPO use the 2020 census to identify where the UZA is likely to be in 20 years, and take over planning for those areas as well. Chisago County, here we come! Not to mention Hudson, Wisconsin, which is also in the UZA.
4. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL: The new Obama rule declares that MPOs that have overlapping geographies should merge. Take a look at the map, and what you see is that Sherburne County has urban clusters that stretch all the way to St. Cloud, where the local MPO then stretches to western Stearns County.  The likely result? A single MPO run by the Met Council that reaches from western Stearns County  to Hudson, Wisconsin. WHAT???
5. Citizens Rise Against the Madness:  Ok, what CRA really stands for is the Congressional Review Act. This little law allows Congress to review and reject last minute rules issued by the previous administration. In other words, the crazy Obama rule and the expansion of the Met Council's MPO authority can be rejected by Congress. And the really great thing about this is that once Congress does this,  the bureaucrats can never come up with another rule that is substantially similar to the rejected rule. But Congress needs to do this within the next couple of months. TELL YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES TO TELL CONGRESS WE WANT THIS RULE REJECTED!
6. BE READY FOR PUSHBACK:  Of course, the Met Council will not take kindly to any challenges to their status as the unelected overlords of the Twin Cities. They'll tell you and the legislature that the new rule is "just" the planning function. But remember, the feds get to decide what's included in that planning function, they've just reinterpreted rules to expand what's included, and they'll do so again. Not to mention the fact that the Met Council started as a way to plan for efficient wastewater facilities. Now it's a billion dollar, sprawling monster. STOP THE MADNESS!

If you want to learn more about the new Obama rule, review this presentation.

If you want to learn more about what an outlier the Met Council is, review this one.

Remember, you get the government you deserve. Rise up and demand accountable, competent government, and put the unelected bureaucrats at the Met Council back in their place!

On Thursday Hennepin County County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin sent a letter the Hennepin County delegation and others in support of new metro-area taxes to support light rail. In particular he is looking to fund Southwest LRT.

McLaughlin notes that a metro area sales tax to fund transit would give Minnesota the same approach as other regions in the country such as Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

Of course, he forgets to mention that all those regions  have a completely different, far more accountable and legitimate governance structure for the regional authority charged with using those tax funds.  That authority in Minnesota is the Met Council.

All other regional authorities in the country are run by a board composed of locally selected elected officials. In contrast, all board members of the Met Council hold patronage positions, and are appointed by Governor Dayton.

Legislators who are considering this plan for new taxes need to demand wholesale changes in the governance structure of the Met Council. At the very least, we need locally selected elected officials running the Council. Anything less is just more unaccountable government, and taxation without representation.  

Learn more here about how the Met Council is THE extreme outlier as the only regional authority that is 100% appointed, with a scope and spending far beyond any other such organization.

Several mayors responded in the Star Tribune to our perspective on the Met Council, and we clearly saw some of their comments as missing the mark. 

Our counterpoint to that reminds readers that the lack of accountability at the Met Council is but the start of its issues, and that we in fact ideally want the Council broken up into separate agencies.

Kim Crockett (Center of the American Experiment) and I responded to the Star Tribune's editorial support for "modest" changes to the Met Council. We lay out the basics of the case against the council's current scope and structure, and call for changes that can help advance the cause for better transportation policy and solutions in the metro area.

I like the caption with the picture at the top of the online story, as it sort of hits the nail on the head.

Of course, you can read and listen to my full report on this topic here.

In an editorial that surprised few people, the Star Tribune came out in favor of the "modest" changes being proposed to the Met Council membership selection and service process. 

With zero evidence to support the assertion, the paper claims:

"the council is a homegrown success story that other metro areas regard with envy. With the power to both plan future growth and deliver needed infrastructure, it stands to be more important than ever in coming years as the region copes with a rapidly aging and diversifying population."

Three questions in response:

1) Why is the envy of bureaucrats from other cities about the Met Council  more important than the concerns of citizens here in the Twin Cities?
2) What evidence makes the editorial board think the Met Council is competent to address an aging and diversifying population?
3) Why are normal, democratic processes insufficient to address such concerns?

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.