House unveils $975M plan with local implications

Published 10:20 am Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Bonding dollars includes $2.5M for Shooting Star Trail

By Austin Daily Herald and Associated Press

Local legislators are pleased with the results of a $975 million Minnesota House construction package released Tuesday, which loads up on college campus projects, provides for statewide civic center upgrades and makes another Capitol restoration installment.

State Rep. Jeanne Poppe was pleased with what she saw as an economic bolster to the state through the House bonding bill.

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“Minnesota’s economy is on the right track, but we need to make sure more individuals, families and businesses are sharing in the benefits of our recovery,” Poppe said in a press release. “Passing a strong bonding bill will put people back to work and build on our momentum.”

Several benefiting Austin and southern Minnesota were included:

• $2.5 million to acquire and develop about 11 miles of the Shooting Star Trail from Rose Creek to Austin.

The Shooting Star Trail currently covers 22 miles from LeRoy to Rose Creek, but the last stretch is key. It would complete the trail and finally reach Austin.

“This is the big one,” Becky Hartwig, owner of the Rose Pedaler in Rose Creek and president of Prairie Visions, said last month after the bonding bill was first introduced.

If the money goes forward and is approved by Gov. Mark Dayton, work could start on the trail this fall and be finished within two years. The plan is to eventually connect the Shooting and Blazing Star trails.

“Expanding the Shooting Star Trail will help draw more tourists to southeastern Minnesota and allow more families and individuals to experience our region’s beautiful landscape and wildlife,” Poppe said.

• $7.5 million to dredge Albert Lea’s Fountain Lake.

Shell Rock River Watershed District leaders and Albert Lea city staff have said the project is necessary because the lake has become filled with sediment.

The accumulation has resulted in water quality impairment and large algae blooms.

• $500,000 to complete the Blazing Star Trail extension from Myre-Big Island State Park to Hayward.

The trail presently begins at Frank Hall Park in Albert Lea and goes to a point on the northeast side of Myre-Big Island State Park, about three quarters of a mile from the western shore of Albert Lea’s northern bay.

“I’m thrilled to see our local projects in the House bill,” said District 27A Rep. Shannon Savick in a news release. “The Fountain Lake and Blazing Star Trail projects were both included last year, but the bill failed to get the bipartisan support it needed to pass. I’m hopeful that we will see bipartisan support for these important projects this session.”

The proposal comes in two parts. One authorizes $850 million in state-backed borrowing and the other draws $125 million in cash from a budget surplus.

House Capital Investment Chairwoman Alice Hausman, who preferred a plan with many more projects and a bigger price tag, didn’t hide her disappointment in her own proposal.

“The one defining word is ‘inadequate,”’ Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, said.

The two-part strategy is unique and reflects the political dynamics of bonding bills; those authorizing debt require Republican votes to meet the three-fifths vote requirement while the cash bill only needs a simple majority.

That helps explain why several theater projects, which some GOP legislators have described as unnecessary, are in the second bill.

Rep. Matt Dean of Dellwood, the leading Republican on the committee, said it was too soon to declare support or opposition.

“There are some clinkers,” Dean said, declining to cite specific projects. He said he was more concerned that majority Democrats are trying to rush a large package through and that the separate cash plan puts the construction spree just shy of $1 billion.

Last year, GOP leaders said they would help pass a borrowing plan capped at $850 million. Hausman said she wouldn’t bring her main bill to a floor vote without getting a commitment from Republicans that they will supply at least eight votes needed if all 73 Democrats stay united. Last spring she thought she had such a pledge and saw a borrowing package fall to defeat.

Once the House passes its proposals, they must be matched up with a competing Senate version.

The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system benefit the most.

The University nets $175 million in projects, from a new chemical sciences lab on the Duluth campus to a large-scale remodeling of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis. At MnSCU, more than $193 million has been allocated for projects spread across almost two dozen campuses. A $30 million chunk has been set aside to rehabilitate aging buildings.