Metropolitan Council

Elections - City Councils and Commissions - Policies
thespeedmccool
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby thespeedmccool » November 18th, 2022, 9:13 pm

I think there's a good chance for major reform at the Met Council with the DFL in control this session. The Republican default position for years has been "disband Met Council," and we're temporarily over that hump.

DFLers have generally favored electing the Met Council for a while, and I hope they make it a partisan office. There's no reason we should have yet another level of government put on the top shelf to keep it away from the unkempt masses.

Trademark
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Trademark » November 19th, 2022, 1:37 am

I think there's a good chance for major reform at the Met Council with the DFL in control this session. The Republican default position for years has been "disband Met Council," and we're temporarily over that hump.

DFLers have generally favored electing the Met Council for a while, and I hope they make it a partisan office. There's no reason we should have yet another level of government put on the top shelf to keep it away from the unkempt masses.
As much as I am morally in favor of electing the Met Council. I can't imagine suburban Met Council members will be very in favor of Mass Transit. I feel like it will be similar to SEPTA in Philadelphia where the power skews heavily Suburban and it will result in more transit that benefits exurb commuters and less that benefits the urban community.

Like I'm all for Democracy, but I don't want people who never ride transit voting for people who will decide where transit is run, and if it is funded.

thespeedmccool
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby thespeedmccool » November 19th, 2022, 5:16 am

I think there's a good chance for major reform at the Met Council with the DFL in control this session. The Republican default position for years has been "disband Met Council," and we're temporarily over that hump.

DFLers have generally favored electing the Met Council for a while, and I hope they make it a partisan office. There's no reason we should have yet another level of government put on the top shelf to keep it away from the unkempt masses.
As much as I am morally in favor of electing the Met Council. I can't imagine suburban Met Council members will be very in favor of Mass Transit. I feel like it will be similar to SEPTA in Philadelphia where the power skews heavily Suburban and it will result in more transit that benefits exurb commuters and less that benefits the urban community.

Like I'm all for Democracy, but I don't want people who never ride transit voting for people who will decide where transit is run, and if it is funded.
I'm definitely worried about that too, so I'm going to be watching what deal they come up with.

I marginally favor electing too, but only if it's done right. Nonpartisan elections to the Met Council would be worthless at best and opportunities for secret Republicans to win deep-blue seats at worst.

I favor partisan elections to 1) provide a buffer against a future conservative, anti-metro governor and 2) elevate debates about urban planning and metropolitan systems above sleepy, local, nonpartisan city council and county commission elections.

Direct and expanded taxing authority must come with elections or you're electing a totally impotent council. The authority to offer referenda and expand into surrounding communities via popular vote would be nice too.

Done right, this presents an opportunity to elevate important issues and push a progressive urban agenda, reinforcing the nationally recognized everyone's of metropolitan governance.

Done wrong, the Met Council becomes a tool to funnel sales taxes into highway expansions, diluting our metropolitan systems and putting the policymakers in a no-politics-allowed glass box.

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Nick
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Nick » November 19th, 2022, 8:58 am

What percentage of voters do you think could name their county commissioner? 10%? No more offices people vote for based on how the name sounds please.
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby MNdible » November 19th, 2022, 1:49 pm

What percentage of voters do you think could name their county commissioner? 10%? No more offices people vote for based on how the name sounds please.
Yes, 100% yes. I'm pretty sure the reason that Blaha almost lost the State Auditor race is strictly because she has a funny name, because she's objectively good at her job and non-controversial.

I feel like you could cook up a plan where the governor keeps a certain number of appointees as at-large seats, and then you give each county a number of seats based on their population (or perhaps have their votes weighted by population?) to make up the rest of the seats.

thespeedmccool
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby thespeedmccool » November 20th, 2022, 10:47 am

What percentage of voters do you think could name their county commissioner? 10%? No more offices people vote for based on how the name sounds please.
Exactly why any elected Met Council needs to be partisan. The only hint 85% of voters have about any candidate is their party label, especially for lower offices.

I think an elected Met Council is more or less a certainty at this point, and I can find good things about that. We just desperately need to ensure these are partisan elections so we're not randomly electing closet Republicans to represent Minneapolis just because the DFLer's name sounded funny.

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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby twincitizen » December 8th, 2022, 11:44 am

Regional Solicitation approved by the TAB, now goes to full Met Council for approval: https://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meetin ... 2_319.aspx

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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Bakken2016 » February 10th, 2023, 11:21 pm

https://twitter.com/wpb003/status/16241 ... W6VvWTP94A

Sen. Dibble will introduce two bills that would dramatically reorganize the governance of Twin Cities transit. One for elected Met Council members, and the other requiring that BRT(Highway/Dedicated Guideway) and LRT projects be built by MnDOT, not the Council.

I'm fine with an elected Met Council, I'm not ok with moving building BRT/LRT projects under MnDOT.

phop
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby phop » February 11th, 2023, 9:54 am

Is this a Kenwood signalling bill or is he actually going to try and get these passed? Giving this power to MnDOT just seems like a clearly bad idea considering that the state DOT is subject to political whims that extend beyond the metro area.

thespeedmccool
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby thespeedmccool » February 11th, 2023, 12:36 pm

I am begging them to make the elected Met Council a partisan body. Please don't saddle us with another low-turnout, low-information set of faceless, nameless elections.

Anondson
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Anondson » February 15th, 2024, 11:05 am

Nick, I found your Minnesota Reformer post very good. I was probably already agreeing with it so this might be my confirmation bias speaking. But good stuff.

https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/02/1 ... n-council/

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Nick
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Nick » February 15th, 2024, 11:25 pm

My actual best case scenario idea is that every unit of government in the metro area should be rolled into the Met Council, which would then be elected and coherent and understandable to normal people. A little too wacko to suggest, though.
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby COLSLAW5 » February 16th, 2024, 7:48 am

Man could you imagine a more cohesive super region. more equal transportation network, more spread out response to low income housing. Maybe even being able to equitably spread out school funding across the entire region.

Obviously bigger isn't always better for bureaucracies but it could be cool

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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Anondson » February 16th, 2024, 8:46 am

The list of positions to vote for was getting my temper going. Out in Hopkins here I was trying to think if there were much differences, we get to vote for the Three Rivers Park commissioner. We don’t get a vote for the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District or Nine Mile Creek which are appointed by the elected Hennepin County Board of Commissioners.

It’s dumb.

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Nick
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Nick » February 16th, 2024, 10:01 am

Man could you imagine a more cohesive super region. more equal transportation network, more spread out response to low income housing. Maybe even being able to equitably spread out school funding across the entire region.

Obviously bigger isn't always better for bureaucracies but it could be cool
I don't even know that it would have to be bigger than what we have now, though. How many separate public sector HR departments are in the seven county metro? Outsourced city attorneys? Poorly managed software contracts by the part-time IT person in a city of 15,000? It seems like you could make a lot of stuff work better by consolidating all of this into one body.
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby mattaudio » February 16th, 2024, 10:21 am

You could also make a lot of stuff worse with centralization to that extreme.

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Nick
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby Nick » February 16th, 2024, 12:58 pm

Sure, but how is the opposite of that going?
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby NickP » February 17th, 2024, 8:56 am

Nicks idea reminds me of other large cities in the world. (New York and London have boroughs, Tokyo has wards, I’m sure other large cities have similar break downs.)

MinnMonkey
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Re: Metropolitan Council

Postby MinnMonkey » February 17th, 2024, 12:35 pm

Man could you imagine a more cohesive super region. more equal transportation network, more spread out response to low income housing. Maybe even being able to equitably spread out school funding across the entire region.

Obviously bigger isn't always better for bureaucracies but it could be cool
I don't even know that it would have to be bigger than what we have now, though. How many separate public sector HR departments are in the seven county metro? Outsourced city attorneys? Poorly managed software contracts by the part-time IT person in a city of 15,000? It seems like you could make a lot of stuff work better by consolidating all of this into one body.
This does exist to a certain extent at least in the technology space. In the 60's, the state allowed for consortiums to be formed where the most famous ones where MECC and TIES.

A larger rather unknown consortium is LOGIS. About 80 metro cities and counties pool there resources for shared IT services, software and public safety.

https://logismn.gov/




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