https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_Minnesota_state_government
DEMS have the solution, more transparency and accountability by having these council members elected by the voters.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/09/02/auditor-report-half-a-billion-dollars-of-southwest-lrt-project-unfunded
State Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, who serves on the state Senate Transportation Finance and Policy Committee, said the Met Council seemed to turn a blind eye to anticipated costs that should have been publicly vetted.
“We have an agency that needs a lot more oversight, transparency and accountability,” he said. “The only real remedy to that is to make sure that the people who are in charge of running all of the services and all of the infrastructure for which they’re responsible have to be elected. We can’t simply have a bureaucracy that has no real measure of accountability to the public it serves.”
Dibble said he’ll introduce a bill next session to make the Metropolitan Council elected by voters.
The members of the council are currently appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. Dibble said there’s a growing consensus that an organization like the Metropolitan Council that spends billions of taxpayer dollars needs to be transparent to the public and accountable to voters.
BOTTOM LINE... DELAYS to handle unforeseen problems and ADD ONS that will ultimately make the project better.
Since 2011, the cost to build the 14.5 mile extension of the Metro Green Line has more than doubled to $2.74 billion.
The legislative auditor found that about $225 million of the additional costs were approved by the Metropolitan Council in April and include a previously deferred station in Eden Prairie, a longer concrete barrier between freight rail and light rail lines and problems with construction of the tunnel through Minneapolis’ Kenilworth Corridor.
The federal government is currently funding $969 million of the project and Hennepin County has committed $772 million, with an additional $200 million from the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. The rest of the funding is being supplied by cities and the state of Minnesota. That leaves an estimated $535 million that’s unfunded.
The auditor determined the delays and increases in building costs are due to uncertainty about whether freight rail lines would be relocated. In 2014, the Metropolitan Council decided that plan wouldn’t work, and decided to build the light rail lines next to the freight rail.
The legislative auditor’s report also found that the delays themselves have ballooned the budget due to higher costs for materials and the expense of employing consultants and construction contractors for longer time periods.
= new reply since forum marked as read