MEMORANDUM DATE: APRIL 10th, 2015 TO: MAYOR & COUNCIL MEMBERS FROM: DANNY LENZ, CITY MANAGER SUBJECT: CITY MANAGER’S REPORT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR POSITION POSTED The Community Development Director position will be posted to the City’s website on Monday, April 13th. This position will become vacant on May 22nd, the last day for the City’s current director Kim Johnson. The City will place an ad with the Waseca County News, as well as place the position on the League of Minnesota Cities website. The position will remain open until filled, with the initial review of applications to being on April 24th. The position announcement is attached. URBAN POLICY INTERN SELECTED The City has selected Mathew Malvin as its Urban Policy intern. Mathew managed franchise restaurants for 8-years before returning to school, where he oversaw quality assurance, marketing analysis, customer retention, inventory management, employee training and supervision and banking and cash management. He has a Bachelor of Science in Economics and currently provides tutoring in economics, business and math and statistics courses at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he is pursuing a degree in Urban Policy. The internship is being funded through a grant from the South Central Service Collaborative, which will cover up to 400 hours for Mathew’s internship with the City. 2014 LOCAL ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (LRIP) GRANT APPLICATION The City was notified this week that we were not selected to receive funding for 2014 from the Local Road Improvement Program. The City had applied for $750,000 in funding to help off-set the unanticipated road construction costs for the rebuild of Old Trunk Highway 14. The City was informed early on in the process that we would be a long-shot to receive this funding. Our application will stay active through the end of the 2015 legislative session in case additional funding becomes available. ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENTS

• Updated April Calendar • May Calendar • CGMC in Brief – 4/9/15 • Greater Minnesota Partnership’s Economic Advantage – 4/7/15

The City of Waseca, MN is seeking an experienced planning professional to leads it Community Development Department. Waseca Minnesota, population 9,737, is a full service community located in Waseca County, approximately 75 miles south of the Twin Cities and off of Highway 14 between the regional centers of Mankato and Rochester. Candidates must possess a bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning or related field and at least two (2) years of professional planning experience; master’s degree and four (4) years professional planning experience and certification by the American Institute of Certified Planners preferred. A complete position description and application is available at www.ci.waseca.mn.us. Salary range: $58,541 - $73,176. Please send application, resume, cover letter and answers to supplemental questions to City of Waseca, Attn: Human Resources, 508 S. State Street, Waseca, MN 56093, or electronically to FinanceDirector@ci.waseca.mn.us. Position is open until filled; review of applications begins April 24th.

CGMC in Brief - April 9, 2015 View this email in your browser

Newsletter for the Week of April 9, 2015

House eliminates funding for broadband infrastructure program The House Job Growth & Energy Affordability Finance Committee released its

omnibus bill yesterday and we were dismayed to see that it included no funding for

the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program. This means that the

House GOP is essentially walking away from the program, which the CGMC and

Greater Minnesota Partnership (GMNP) helped to create last year. In addition, the

House has defunded the Office of Broadband Development, which administered

the fund and provided vital support to communities. The CGMC issued a press

release today in response to this glaring omission.

Other CGMC priorities receive some attention under House jobs bill While the House Job Growth & Energy Affordability Finance Committee ignored

broadband in its omnibus bill, it did address some the CGMC and GMNP's other

priorities:

• The Greater Minnesota Business Development Public Infrastructure (BDPI)

grant program would receive a general fund appropriation of $750,000 in

2016 and $1.5 million in 2017. We hope that more funding will be provided if

there is a bonding bill in the House. In a surprise move, the committee also

decided to make BDPI an ongoing budget item instead of a one-time

appropriation, starting in 2018 with $2 million per year.

• The CGMC/GMNP job training grant program would receive $500,000 a

year in 2016 and 2017. However, the House is expected to fund the tax

credit portion of our plan in the Tax Committee.

• The omnibus bill adopts the League of Minnesota Cities' workforce housing

proposal and funds it at $2.5 million in each of the next two years. It also

provides funding for workforce housing through the Minnesota Housing

Finance Agency, but given the agency's track record we don't have much

confidence that the money will be spent on workforce housing Greater

Minnesota. We are hopeful that the CGMC/GMNP workforce housing

proposal will be funded in the Tax Committee.

House unveils comprehensive transportation plan At long last, the House has presented a comprehensive transportation funding plan

that pledges more than $7 billion to transportation for the next 10 years, primarily

focusing on roads and bridges. This plan does not raise any taxes or fees and

relies solely on existing general fund money and budget shifts. The cost to the

general fund appears to be around $320 million per year. The bill, HF 4 (authored

by Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Red Wing), relies on dramatic changes to metro transit to

limit the impact on the general fund.

The CGMC has three primary goals for any comprehensive transportation

package: funding for Corridors of Commerce, street repair/replacement money for

cities over 5,000 beyond Municipal Street Aid (MSA), and street repair/replacement

money for cities under 5,000.

HF 4 funds Corridors of Commerce through trunk highway bonds, pledging $800

million over seven years. For comparison, the Senate funds Corridors of

Commerce at $800 million over four years and the Governor pledges $1.6 billion

over 10 years.

HF 4 does not contain any additional funding for the streets of cities over 5,000

outside the constitutional formula. It does increase municipal street aid, but at a

rate of less than one-half of the Governor’s plan. Cities under 5,000, however, get

generous funding: $25 million/year for the first two years, and approximately $28

million/year in future years. See this run for information on each city.

The distribution formula for cities under 5,000 was devised by non-partisan

research staff. The Senate still has not come forth with solid numbers for its small

city proposal, and the Governor does not pledge any money directly to cities under

5,000 (his plan relies on counties to share their increased funding with small cities).

In addition, Greater Minnesota transit receives increased funding under HF 4.

The committee will hear testimony this week. We will continue to lobby both the

House and Senate to reach a compromise and pass a bipartisan comprehensive

transportation bill this year.

CGMC opposes effort to cut first-class city LGA On Wednesday and Thursday, the House Property Tax and Local Government

Finance Division heard testimony on HF 2034 (authored by Rep. Duane Quam, R-

Byron) which if enacted would reduce LGA for cities of the first class by limiting the

amount of aid they get per capita to the average per capita of all other cities. The

impact on Minneapolis and St. Paul would be a 50% and 54% reduction in aid,

respectively. For CGMC member Duluth, the cut would be a whopping 72%.

Under Rep. Quam’s bill, the dollars saved from the cuts to the first-class cities

would be returned to the state’s General Fund. The total reduction to the LGA

program would be more than $94 million.

CGMC has always opposed arbitrarily targeting cities for cuts based on their status

as first-class cities. The strength of the LGA program is the fact that it is based on

objective need factors and a city’s ability to meet its needs based on its tax base.

Severing the relationship between a city’s LGA and the formula’s evaluation of

need and tax base will ultimately erode confidence that the formula is fair and

objective, thus undermining support for the whole LGA program.

CGMC President Heidi Omerza submitted this letter to the committee and CGMC

lobbyist Bradley Peterson testified against the bill. The League of Minnesota Cities

and the Metro Cities organization also testified against it. The bill was laid over for

possible inclusion in the House Tax Bill.

BDPI left out of Governor's bonding bill Governor Dayton released his proposed $842 million bonding bill on Tuesday and

we were disappointed to see that he neglected to include any funding for the BDPI

program. In addition, he only included funding for two bridges – one in Minneapolis

and one in St. Paul.

The BDPI program helps cities and counties provide grants for infrastructure

needed for private business growth. In the 12 years since the program was

created, 166 cities have received grants leading to the creation of 1,625 jobs in

Greater Minnesota. The CGMC is seeking $20 million for the BDPI program for the

next biennium.

Click here for a complete list of Dayton's proposed projects. A map of the projects

and regional breakdowns is also available here. Look for additional analysis of the

proposal in a future edition of the CGMC in Brief.

City visits generate media attention As part of the city visits during the Legislature’s Easter/Passover break, CGMC

and GMNP staff members visited with several newspapers in Greater Minnesota to

inform editors and reporters about our legislative priorities. We are pleased to

report that the visits have already resulted in several positive editorials and articles:

• Forum News editorial

• Forum News cartoon

• Crookston Times editorial

• Crookston Times article

• Grand Forks Herald editorial

• Marshall Independent article

• Worthington Daily Globe article

Labor & employee relations seminars to be held in Austin, Alexandria The CGMC Labor and Employee Relations Committee will hold labor and

employee relations seminars from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 4 in

Austin and Thursday, June 11 in Alexandria. The seminars will provide practical

and legal solutions for providing services and managing employees in local

government. Seminar topics include:

• Employee and union communications

• Job classification and compensation systems

• Updates on settlements, arbitrations and the Legislature

• Minnesota’s aging workforce

• Mock employer labor contract second proposal

The registration form for both seminars can be found here. Please complete your

registration and return it via email, fax or mail per the instructions on the form.

Registration closes May 30 for the Austin seminar and June 6 for the Alexandria

seminar. We look forward to seeing you there!

Workshops will explore regional designation process for parks & trails The Legislature established the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails

Commission (GMRPTC) to create a system-wide plan for regional parks and trails.

As part of the planning process, the GMRPTC has created an evaluation process

to determine whether parks and trails should be designated as regional. In the

future, this designation will be necessary to be eligible for Legacy Parks and Trails

funds. The GMRPTC will hold Regional Designation application workshops in each

of its six districts in May. The workshops will provide information and training on

the GMRPTC’s new web-based application process. Regional Designation is the

required first step for parks and trails to become a part of the Statewide System

Plan.

Please refer to the GMRPTC’s webpage for more information and workshop dates

and locations. Registration for individual workshops can be found here. Please be

sure that the staff members in charge of parks and trails in your area are aware of

the process and these workshops.

Save the date! Please mark your calendar for upcoming CGMC events and important dates:

• Labor & Employee Relations Seminars: June 4, 2015 in Austin and

June 11, 2015 in Alexandria

• CGMC Summer Conference: July 22-24, 2015 in Duluth

• CGMC Fall Conference: Nov. 12-13, 2015 in Alexandria

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Visit us online at greatermncities.org

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525 Park St., Suite 470 St. Paul, MN 55103

Contact: Bradley Peterson at bmpeterson@flaherty-hood.com or 651-259-1940

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Greater Minnesota Partnership's Economic Advantage View this email in your browser

Newsletter for the week of April 7, 2015 House jobs committee to unveil omnibus bill The House Job Growth & Energy Affordability Committee has

announced that it will release its omnibus bill tomorrow. It is a

positive sign that two of the GMNP’s bills are scheduled for

hearings leading up the release: HF 579 (authored by Rep.

Mary Franson, R-Alexandria), which would appropriate $10

million into the Business Development Public Infrastructure

(BDPI) grant program, will be heard this evening, while HF

750 (authored by Rep. Deb Kiel, R-Crookston), which would

provide $15 million in job training grants over the next

biennium, will be heard tomorrow morning.

We are cautiously optimistic that the GMNP’s job training and

BDPI proposals will be included in the omnibus bill, but after

visiting with several legislators, we are concerned that

broadband may be underfunded or left out of the bill entirely.

Other GMNP priorities, including transportation, environmental

regulatory reform and tax credits for workforce housing and

job training, fall under the purview of other committees. We

will continue to keep you posted on developments as they

arise.

BDPI left out of Governor's bonding bill Governor Dayton released his proposed $842 million

bonding bill today and we were disappointed to see that he

neglected to include any funding for the Greater Minnesota

Business Development Public Infrastructure (BDPI) grant

program.

The BDPI program helps cities and counties provide grants for

infrastructure needed for private business growth. In the 12

years since the program was created, 166 cities have received

grants leading to the creation of 1,625 jobs in Greater

Minnesota. The GMNP is seeking $20 million for the BDPI

program for the next biennium.

Click here for a complete list of Dayton's proposed

projects. In addition, a map of the projects and regional

breakdowns is available here. To the credit of Gov. Dayton,

the bonding proposal is very transparent and easy to

understand. Look for additional analysis of the proposal in

future editions of the Economic Advantage.

Senate Tax Committee to hear updated

version of workforce housing bill At the request of Senate Tax Committee Chair Sen. Rod

Skoe (DFL-Clearkbrook), Sen. Dan Sparks (DFL-Austin) has

authored SF 1968, an improved variation of the GMNP’s

workforce housing proposal. This updated bill provides a 40

percent tax credit for investing in workforce housing in

Greater Minnesota and an additional 10 percent tax credit if

the investor increases employment by at least 10 new

employees per year for three years after the credit is

received. The GMNP supports this updated version, which

further strengthens the economic development component of

workforce housing by encouraging job growth. The bill is

scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Tax Committee on

Thursday.

GMNP/CGMC staff hit the road to promote Greater Minnesota priorities When the legislature was on its Easter/Passover Break last

week, GMNP and Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities (CGMC)

lobbyists took the opportunity to travel across the state to

meet with city officials, legislators and local media to continue

to drum up support for our top legislative priorities. Cities that

received visits from GMNP and/or CGMC staff included

Virginia, Grand Rapids, Bemidji, Crookston, East Grand Forks,

Thief River Falls, Moorhead, Willmar, Marshall, Worthington,

New Ulm, Owatonna, Rochester, Winona, La Crescent, Albert

Lea and Austin. Thank you to all the business leaders and city

officials who helped arrange meetings!

For more information on the GMNP/CGMC priorities and the

status of the bills related to them, check out this Priorities &

Progress Report handout that was distributed to legislators

and the media during the visits.

GMNP Executive Director Dan Dorman to

speak at Worthington Bio Conference

As we mentioned last week, GMNP Executive Director Dan

Dorman will be one of the featured speakers at the

Worthington Regional Bio Conference on Thursday. Dorman's

presentation titled "Building a Strong Rural Economy --

Workforce Training & Housing" will explore the economic

development needs of rural communities and discuss the work

the GMNP is doing to find solutions to some of the barriers to

growth. You can read more about the issues Dorman will

discuss in his presentation in this Worthington Daily Globe

article.

The Worthington Regional Bio Conference, which will be held

this Thursday and Friday, is an annual gathering of industry

professionals, research scientists and business leaders. It

showcases the region’s health and bio-business sectors

through an array of learning sessions and presentations put

on by top researchers and industry leaders. GMNP members

are welcome to attend. Check out the conference website for

more information, including its cost and how to register.

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The Greater Minnesota Partnership brings together businesses, economic development organizations, local

governments and non-profits to promote and advocate for economic prosperity in Greater Minnesota.

Copyright © 2015 Flaherty & Hood, P.A., All rights reserved. Questions? Contact: Executive Director Dan Dorman Email: dan@gmnp.org Phone: 612-245-5204 Our mailing address is: Greater Minnesota Partnership Flaherty & Hood, P.A. 525 Park St., Suite 470 St. Paul, MN 55103 Visit us online at gmnp.org.