Star Tribune
Minnesota Legislature task force offers six recommendations for reforming Met Council
A group tasked by the Legislature with reforming the Metropolitan Council will wrap up its work Thursday — but has not settled on a single proposal for restructuring the regional planning board.
The Met Council — a powerful body with a wide range of responsibilities and a $1.4 billion budget — has long been criticized for lacking transparency and accountability, in part due to its members being appointed by Minnesota’s governor. The body oversees public transportation, wastewater treatment, land-use rules, affordable housing and public parks in the seven-county metro area.
The 17-member task force, which has been meeting since August, was tasked with analyzing various approaches to structuring the Met Council, including how its members should be picked. Task force members include legislators, citizens and nonprofit directors, some who have been critical of the Met Council over time and others who favor the status quo.
No single model or idea was favored by a majority of the task force, and the group is instead offering six separate proposals. The Legislature, which begins its session Feb. 12, will have the final say on what the council will look like in the future.
But the group did agree the Met Council has an accountability problem, said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, the task force’s chair.
“There is widespread agreement that the Met Council governance needs to be fixed — I think what we found is that there are a variety of approaches,” Hornstein, a former Met Council member who called the governance problems “far-reaching” and “regional.”
What’s the problem?
Several other groups have reviewed the Met Council in the past, including one organized by the Citizen’s League in 2016 and a blue-ribbon panel convened by the governor in 2020. The Legislative Auditor looked at the Met Council in 2011, suggesting its members be both elected and appointed.
Sen. Eric Pratt, R-Prior Lake, the task force’s vice chair, said the Met Council has done some things well, such as regionalizing the wastewater treatment system.
“But when it comes to housing and land use, there’s a discrepancy between the urban and suburban communities,” he said, adding that it’s seemed like Hennepin County and the Met Council have wanted to control how some suburbs grow.
This is the first time the Legislature called for an examination of Met Council governance.
Sam Rockwell, a task force member and executive director of Move Minnesota, a nonprofit advocating for environmentally-friendly transportation, said the latest wave of interest was largely prompted by debates over the Southwest light-rail line being built by the Met Council.
The project “really spurred the folks in the Legislature to say they want to see something different,” he said.
Met Council spokeswomanTerri Dresen said in a statement that the council appreciates the task force’s work and looks forward “to the continued discussion on how to best serve the region going forward.”
The Southwest light-rail project, which will extend the Green Line and link downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie, is a decade behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget.
Mary Pattock, a task force member who lives near the proposed light-rail line and part of a group that unsuccessfully sued to stop it, noted that it is the most costly public works project in Minnesota history.
Her neighborhood has seen the fallout from the light-rail project so far, including the loss of hundreds of trees, she said. Cracks formed in the Cedar Isles condominiums’ hallway during the construction of a half-mile long tunnel in the narrow Kenilworth Corridor, and the condo’s underground parking garage flooded after a water main break in 2022.
“Over and over again, our neighborhood said the Met Council is not listening,” she said, adding that neighborhood residents predicted its problems.
New proposals
The task force’s restructuring recommendations fall into three categories:
- Making the Met Council an elected body
- Keeping it as an appointed body
- Restructuring it into a “council of governments” — a regional planning group comprised of elected city and county leaders
Five proposals, including two submitted by Pratt, called for substantial change. A model put forth by Edina Mayor James Hovland suggested keeping aspects of the Met Council the same but moving to staggered terms, adding more members to the Met Council nominating committee and requiring a public comment period after members are nominated but before they’re appointed.
Dibble’s proposal suggests the Met Council be divided into two separate bodies that share planning responsibility, one a civic council comprised of mostly directly elected members and the other a council of governments in which appointees are chosen by caucuses of their peers. The council of governments would be consulted on all civic council decisions, could require those decisions be reconsidered and may veto civic council decisions with a 2/3 vote. In turn, the civic council can override that veto.
Hornstein said he supports Dibble’s proposal because it combined multiple ideas. He hopes it “will carry the day at the Legislature.”
Hennepin County Commissioner Marion Greene offered a plan for a directly elected Metropolitan Council, with staggered terms.
Pattock suggests separating the Met Council and Metro Transit. The Met Council would be a council of governments appointed by the governor according to specific criteria and funded by the legislature. Metro Transit would be a “special district” governed by a board of directors, most of whom are elected and can vote. Of the 15 voting members, three would be from Hennepin County and two from each of the other metro counties.
Pratt created two different models, the first a 40-member council of governments model where each member would represent a proportional district and be picked by a committee. The group would hire an executive director and pick a chair.
“I want the Met Council representatives [to be] closer to the communities they serve,” Pratt said, adding that this plan takes partisanship out of the equation.
Pratt’s second idea also calls for a 40-member council of governments model, with members appointed by the governor.
Some task force members are optimistic the Legislature will make changes based on their report, while others are doubtful.
“What’s news is that we’ve given [the Legislature] a recipe for approaching the problem,” Pattock said.
Hornstein said lawmakers might have their own ideas on how to blend different proposals into something new.
“If I have one message, it’s that the status quo is not tenable and the governance of this organization has to change,” Hornstein said.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
