The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

March 15, 2010

Civic center addition hopes dashed again

Governor removes funding for Mankato projects

By Dan Linehan The Free Press

MANKATO — For the third time in a row, Mankato’s request for state funds to expand its civic center has been specifically removed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty from a construction bill.

It’s almost enough to make a city feel unwanted.

“At least St. Cloud and Rochester were in the same boat this time,” Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges said.

Mankato was requesting $12 million to add a performing arts center to the Verizon Wireless Civic Center. The project would also improve the civic center’s arena and All Seasons Arena.

But without the state support, “it’s ridiculous to proceed,” Hentges said.

The governor pared the $999 million construction bill — the “bonding bill” as it’s known around the Capitol — to $686 million, just $1 million more than the bill he had proposed in January.

“The DFL-controlled legislature seems incapable of prioritizing projects or simply saying no. So, I have again done it for you,” Pawlenty wrote in a letter accompanying the vetoes.

Dennis Dotson, who helped organized a letter-writing campaign on behalf of the civic center project, said his disappointment is mitigated by the fact that the governor didn’t single out Mankato.

“From my personal standpoint, leadership is about being consistent,” he said. ... “He has to lead and it’s a difficult time to lead.”

Dotson maintains a positive outlook because of the nearly 500 letters, postcards, phone cards and e-mails in support of the project.

“It’s going to happen sometime.”

State Sen. Kathy Sheran, D-Mankato, saw contradiction, not consistency, in the bonding bill.

Pawlenty approved, for example, $16 million in renovations for Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis and $4 million to expand the National Volleyball Center in Rochester.

Sheran doesn’t oppose those projects but said it “seems to be disingenuous” for the governor to leave them but line-item veto others, including $1.9 million to design a clinical sciences building at Minnesota State University.

“That’s what I call a core function of government, especially the core function of the bonding bill,” Sheran said of the MSU appropriation. “But the governor cuts those things that are a core function” while leaving others that aren’t.

In response to the governor’s contention that Democrats were irresponsible about the bill’s size, Sheran said the Democrats’ bill would have created 7,000 more jobs than the one approved by Pawlenty.

She also said Democrats replaced some projects with public safety and veterans projects the governor supported but the governor was unwilling to make any concessions of his own.

The only area project left in the bill was $5 million for an improvement to the Minnesota Valley Regional Railroad between Gaylord and Winthrop.

The state typically borrows for construction projects once every two years, but an influential Democrat suggested there may be less of a wait.

“Hopefully a year from now in January we will have a governor that we can trust and we will proceed with getting back some of these projects,” said Sen. Keith Langseth of Glyndon.



The Associated Press contributed to this article

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Local News