I don’t know if there is a way to embed KAAL (ABC 6) stories, but here is a link to their coverage here. They once again went to the bottom of the barrel and interviewed me.
“Every year, the City of Rochester and Olmsted County send almost $90 million more to the State Treasury in taxes than they receive back in LGA, school aid, and other assistance,” said Governor Dayton.
“The reality is we send so much in income tax and sales tax up to Saint Paul and we get a pittance of that back,” says Rochester city council member, Michael Wojcik, who met with Governor Dayton on Thursday. While he’s happy with the Governor’s praise, he points out Rochester’s state contributions are a double-edged sword; especially, when programs like Local Government Aid are being slashed.
“We don’t have necessarily the means to keep funding the programs that we have and that’s why you see this constant budget struggle at the city and county level,” says Wojcik.
Here is one of many county roads in Rochester which fails to account for pedestrians, cyclists, businesses, transit users, the young, the old, or the disabled.
Since it is an election year and I haven’t decided to not run for office, I am going to be posting some of the feedback that I get that makes me smile. I will not share names unless I have permission, and I certainly won’t when the writer is critical of other council members. Even though in this case the criticism is fair and well deserved. The decision does beg the question that if Bruce Snyder is not willing to pay for maintaining existing infrastructure is he still going to ask for more new infrastructure? It is frustrating when I have the best excuse to cower but do not, yet others lose their backbone.
Hi Michael:
Excellent job at the meeting and thank you for your leadership and work you did with the 2nd St. owners. They clearly have challenges to face with these large assessments but it was also clear that you made them understand this was a situation that the city had to face for the good of the community. Some may be driven from their properties. Sad, but that often comes with development. Too bad so few understand who the losers are or speak for them when our open land gets developed. It would have been quite a sharp contrast last night had the Kwik Trip tree variance hearing been held.
I decided not to speak since I really didn’t have any skin in the game and it became clear this was a hearing about the assessment, not the design. I could not have added anything of substance to move the debate. I applaud you Mark, Randy and Sandra for taking a courageous stand – quite striking in contrast to the two who voted no yet offered no other ideas. Particularly telling was Ed’s commentary, praising you and your work, yet voting no. A real coward, recognizes what is right but chooses not to take a stand. Shameful. At least Bruce just sat there like the toad that he is – true to form and honestly an idiot.
Aside from your courageous championship of this issue, my favorite part of the night was the Rabbi from Chabad-Lubavitch. (Do you know his name? I missed it.) I have decided to make a contribution out of respect for his good natured and sincere “objection”. I feel somewhat responsible for his plight being one of those with the “good idea”. In my own small way I would like to support his faith that God will provide.
Well if she does we hope she sends the money to the right state.
The funniest part of this is that when she is reading off the list of events, she actually reads off a New York state event, but still doesn’t put two and two together. When I was searching for the above video I also found this nugget, below.
In fairness, I don’t know what the public said, or if there were just being clueless. We occasionally have some clueless folks at our city council meeting that get corrected or asked to sit down. But the fact that there was someone on the committee actually defending the witnesses tells me that Rep. Anderson was probably out of line.
