A tale of two cities

 

 

"Living here reminds me of the TV show 'Fringe". We are two parallel universes occupying the same space..."

For those who think I am going to write about Minneapolis and St. Paul - sorry. This is really not about two distinct cities. It is about our metro area. A few years ago, a friend of mine (who does not live in Minnesota), asked me a very good question. "How in the world can one area produce two such different people as Michele Bachmann and Keith Ellison? Whose districts are so close to each other?" A very good question indeed.

I have lived in the area my entire life. I have slowly watched it change, become more and more bifurcated. Become two cities in one. One bright red and the other deep blue. There is some purple, but not as much as there once was. And the problem to those of us who are red is quite simple - the power in this state comes from a very blue area. Downtown St. Paul.

Well today in the paper there was an excellent article on how the battle is about to be joined. Not just once every other year at the ballot box. No, this is a battle on how we are going to live our lives day by day. If we are going to have taxation with representation. If we are to live under self-determination, or have our lives dictated to us by the unelected Metropolitan Council. Well the Met Council just found out a painful fact of life. We in the outer suburbs are not subjects. We are citizens. We are citizens who understand our Constitution, both state and federal. And therefore we recognize the Met Council is operating way, way outside their authority.

Four counties in the metro area (Anoka, Dakota, Scott and Carver), are taking on this Goliath. They are standing up and saying "NO MORE!" The counties have hired outside guns from Washington to help put this genie back in its box. And our Governor, our statist Governor, who loves the Met Council as much as life itself, is livid. How dare these counties embarrass Minnesota like this! How dare they go behind his back! Well they did, and this battle is just getting started. Many of us in the hinter land are very anxious to tell the Met Council to stick their Thrive 2040 and their unauthorized power where the sun does not shine. 

I think the counties have a good case. They are going to the Department of Transportation and telling them $660M of federal dollars is being distributed without proper representation in the metro area. If the Transportation Department plays politics and sides with the Governor and the Met Council, I would not be surprised to see this go all the way up the ladder - to the Supreme Court.

Keep your eyes on this one folks. It should be very interesting. I know folks in the blue universe could care less. But the wagon pullers in the red universe are highly interested. And plan to stay that way.