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Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Happy Valentine's Day weekend! I hope you are able to get out to dinner or order takeout at one of our local restaurants!
I want to start this update by congratulating Randal Hemmerlin on his retirement from the Red Wing Housing and Redevelopment Authority. Thank you Randall for your years of service to the Red Wing community. You can read about Randal's years of service here.
I had the opportunity to work with Randal in some of my non-profit consulting work and when I entered the legislature I partnered with him on housing legislation. Randal was a trusted source of information on housing policy – not only for me – but was known throughout the state with many housing advocacy groups. He testified numerous times with me on the Housing Trust Fund legislation. Thank you Randal and enjoy your retirement!
Budget Making Process
We had another busy week at the legislature full of committee meetings and public testimony. Almost 1000 bills have been introduced and it isn't even the middle of February yet!
This being the first year of the biennium, the legislature must pass and the governor must sign a two-year budget before July 1 to avoid a government shut down. Unfortunately, we are over a month into session and progress on this important work has been painfully slow.
Budget negotiations normally take place in person where we can meet face to face, hash out differences, and work together to come up with solutions — and even in "normal times" it can come down to the very last minute or extend into a special session with far too much of it happening behind closed doors in meetings between the leadership of the majority parties and the governor. Legislating remotely via Zoom has only exasperated these issues.
The committee hearings are an important part of the process for our citizens and stakeholders to have input into legislation. That has also been challenging this year but I hope we continue to work to have an open, fair, and transparent process.
Call me an optimist but I believe if we get down to the real work now, we can get the people's work done on time and done in the right way.
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