With flood mitigation projects having survived the veto pen of governor Tim Pawlenty, the City of Granite Falls is in good standing to receive monies that will allow it to complete levy work initiated behind Richter Field. And the Roebling Suspension Bridge appears in, too.
Whittled down from an $1 billion capital investment bill to $686 million, the republican governor made a total of 52 cuts, reducing the bill beyond his original recommendations.
“As usual, I have been left to reduce spending within the bill to an affordable level. The DFL-controlled legislature seems incapable of prioritizing projects or simply saying no. So I have again done it for you,” said Pawlenty in a letter addressed to Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher.
Despite his indomitable pen, included within the bill was the request of $512,000 for the Roebling Suspension Bridge. The funds are matching, which means the other fifty percent of project costs will have to come from a source other than the state, whether it be local, federal, etc.
“We’re pleased that it wasn’t line-item vetoed, there’s a real need to rehabilitate the bridge,” said City Manager Bill Lavin. “There’s many options to use the state funds with other sources. It’s definitely good for the city.”
Of the $63.5 million for flood mitigation projects that the governor signed into law, the City hopes that $2.3 million will be available to fund its request for additional improvements to the levee that runs from behind the city garage to the BNSF railroad near Martin Marietta. As it is a project that is already in the works, with a portion of the project located behind the baseball field completed in 2009, Granite Falls is believed to have a good chance of being allocated the funds. The final determination will be made by the Minnesota DNR Waters Division, from which flood mitigation dollars flow through.
MnSCU massacred
Though Granite Falls was successful with their project requests, many other entities were not so fortunate. The degree of the cuts undertaken by Pawlenty ended up being significantly more than the legislature expected. The governor was said to have even removed projects promised to members of his own party.
“He took it down further than he said he was going to. You can’t always trust him, even some of his own caucus members say that,” said Senator Gary Kubly.
“If you can’t trust a person’s word in this business you probably can’t trust their signature either.”
Of all the cuts, Kubly expressed the most displeasure with those made to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system. MnSCU was hit hardest by vetos, seeing three-quarters, or $133 million, of its bonding projects removed from the bill.
“It seems to me the MnSCU projects need to be done so why not do them when the cost of labor and materials are lower than they usually are,” the Granite Falls Senator said.
While the Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Granite Falls is a part of the MnSCU system, it was unaffected by the cuts directly as they had no projects included in the proposed legislation, said Campus Administrator Linda DeGriselles.
Some area campuses weren’t so lucky. The Minnesota West campus in Canby lost on a $2 million appropriation that would have allowed the technical college to build a wind turbine. The project was considered ideal because the campus specializes in classes geared toward that particular renewable technology.
While the overall sentiment seemed to be largely negative toward the governor’s recent vetos, Kubly noted that there were still plenty of capital improvement projects contained in the bill.
“On the bright side, there will probably be over 10,000 jobs created with what’s left,” the Senator said.
