Dayton signs public works bill

by MinnPost staff 05/30/201805/30/2018

The bonding news you’ve been waiting for. MPR’s (MinnPost Retiree) Briana Bierschbach reports: “DFL Gov. Mark Dayton signed a public works package that will spend $1.5 billion from road construction to college campus repairs. … Gov. Mark Dayton on Wednesday put his signature to a public works package that will spend $1.5 billion on projects from road construction to college campus repairs. The state will borrow $825 million of that total. … The package was the single largest agreement between Dayton, a Democrat, and the GOP-controlled Legislature during a tumultuous session that saw Dayton torpedo tax and budget bills that included the main work of the Republican-led Legislature.”

Dayton not wild about wild rice bill. The Associated Press reports (via the Star Tribune): “Gov. Mark Dayton has vetoed a bill that he says would have unlawfully undermined Minnesota’s water quality standard for protecting wild rice. … Dayton, who vetoed a similar bill earlier, says the revised version represented ‘some progress,’ but not enough to overcome its shortcomings. … He says the bill would have given a work group authority to take over the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s responsibilities under state and federal law for protecting wild rice. He says that would have violated federal law and offended Native American tribes that depend on wild rice. ”

Republican leadership shakeup. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports: “Minnesota House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin is ending her campaign for re-election to take a position with a statewide utility group. … Peppin announced the sudden shift in a news release Wednesday. She will become director of government affairs and general counsel for the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. … ‘For me, serving in the Legislature was not meant to be a full-time career, but rather a temporary public service and I know there are many smart leaders with new ideas, goals and skills that will step forward to serve,’ Peppin said.”

Where was the good guy with a BB gun? City Pages’s Mike Mullen reports: “Over the long Memorial Day weekend, word circulated online that dozens of cars in northeast Minneapolis had been damaged in what appeared to be an extensive vandalism spree. … Initial reports said as many as 50 cars were hit, in what police believed to be a BB gun shooting spree. … It turns out the damage was not quite that extensive, but there were enough incidents in a short period of time that cops are trying to reach the entire neighborhood to warn them, and seek the criminal (or criminals) behind the broken car windows.”