by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Each year, for the past 10 years, as springtime approaches, the five cities in the greater St. Cloud area try to agree with one another on which legislative priorities they should urge legislators to pass for the good of each city, as well as for mutual regional benefits.
This season, however, the Sartell City Council decided to hold back on its agreement. It’s not that the council is averse to the priorities. Not at all. However, council members in a recent meeting did agree the list of priorities amounts to a too-lengthy “laundry list” of wishes that are vague, poorly defined, non-specific and mostly unrelated to Sartell, and so members agreed to hold off on signing the non-binding document.
Each year, the council members noted, the priorities list gets longer and longer to the point that it probably doesn’t have any impact with legislators the way it would if there were only four or five priorities, each city-specific or one or two of definite regional benefit.
The document for this year, as it is now, has been approved by all area cities except Sartell. It contains seven policy proposals, five funding proposals and 14 general-policy statements.
The list is so long, with so many varying items on it, that Sartell Council members said legislators would easily overlook it. To have any real impact with legislators, the items on the list should be fewer, more specific and defined in some detail, the members agreed.
Sartell City Administrator Mary Degiovanni, after listening to the council members’ opinions, said she would share their viewpoints with the St. Cloud Area Planning Organization.
One of the funding proposals in the list does relate specifically to Sartell – a request for state funds to help pay for Sartell’s Fourth Avenue S. extension project as part of the larger project known as West Metro Corridor.
The many other items on the list have to do with everything from water-standards regulations to publication requirements, from sales-tax exemptions for public purchases to extension of the Northstar Commuter Rail to St. Cloud.
Most of the projects and proposals are regional in nature but few have direct bearing on the City of Sartell.