County to local legislators: Give us some relief
January 12, 2011 at 5:18 am in South Washington County Bulletin
Commissioners and county officials told area legislators Tuesday that the single-most important state issue affecting county government is the burden of program requirements that are not backed by state dollars. They asked that the Minnesota Legislature roll back some of the so-called “unfunded mandates” and pointed to specific examples. Continue Reading
Now we’re talking. Logic and common sense. Keep the pressure on the state to rescind any unfunded mandates to counties.
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Now THIS is what I voted for! All rumblings from the new republican majorities in our Legislature point to this finally coming to removing the mandates that previous commissioners (who shall remain nameless) blamed as reason why we can’t cut spending. Get the state outta the way and let locals determine local spending necessities. True, some local governments will show themselves unworthy of being responsible, but then it becomes the local people’s duty to replace them with local elected officials who can be responsible. And what better time for that than now, when more people are paying attention to their government than have in ages!
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As citizens we can help the effort by emailing, writing or calling Sen. Katie Sieben and Rep. John Kriesel in support of the county commissions request to remove the unfunded mandates.
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I agree with the above postings. But…just watch the new Vikings stadium go up with taxpayer dollars. Just watch.
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I’m afraid it probably will, Barry. Especially since Governor Dayton has hinted at the need to make it happen now since the stadium roof collapse. I’m not a fan of tax dollars building anyone a place to conduct a very profitable business from. But I begrudgingly know the rock and a hard place aspect of sports franchises. They do bring a lot of money to our local economy as well as high salary income tax revenue for those who actually move to the state they play in. That makes them unusual to regular businesses, I suppose. But I do feel sports owners take advantage of the host states when they are pitching ridiculous salaries at players, can benefit from a variety of kickbacks ranging from ad revenues and beyond. All of that ramble aside, I won’t lose sleep when I learn we bought a stadium to keep the Vikings here. But it sure highlights a national problem in how we collectively deal with competing to keep our professional teams in place. Green Bay sure seems to have figured it out though.
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Why should taxpayers subsidize Billion and Millionaires a new stadium? The owners and players are wealthy and want to present their entertainment to us so let them build it and pay for it. Time to quit holding cities hostage over these stadium issues with threats of moving the team. It would be different if the state owned the Vikings.
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