Light-rail funding becomes entangled in earmark battle
By KEVIN DIAZ, Star Tribune
Last update: March 12, 2008 - 10:52 PM
WASHINGTON - When Minnesota officials asked Congress to earmark $25 million for the Central Corridor light-rail project this month, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum's office insisted that Gov. Tim Pawlenty personally sign a statement backing "Congress' authority to direct project specific funding."
Translation: If the governor wants the money, he'll have to endorse Congress spending money on home-district projects, a process known as earmarking -- and one that's generated a lot of smoke in congressional and presidential politics this year.
Pawlenty, a co-chairman of the Republican presidential campaign of anti-earmark crusader Sen. John McCain of Arizona, balked at McCollum's request.
"The earmarking process," Pawlenty said in a letter back to her, "is in need of reform."
While there is little doubt that McCollum will still vouch for the $900 million rail project in the heart of her St. Paul district, analysts say her attempt to extract an earmark sign-off from Pawlenty raises the rhetorical heat in the congressional battle over so-called pork-barrel spending.
Minnesota seeks $160 million
Minnesota alone has nearly $160 million in earmark requests before Congress, including $25 million for the Central Corridor Light Rail project connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Backers of the rail project, who include Pawlenty, say it hardly qualifies as pork. Nevertheless, they have been caught up in a tussle that has seen two GOP House members from Minnesota -- John Kline and Michele Bachmann -- pledge not to seek earmarks in their districts.
There's more to the article. It is worth reading, and you should read it at Strib.
The leading and subsequent excerpting, above, is what I found interesting, given the recent endorsement from McCollum of transportation lobbyist Elwyn Tinklenberg's Sixth District candidacy.
Might, just perhaps, there be some fashion of quid pro quo at play? Politics, as usual? Perhaps. Perhaps not. What can Bob Olson do for the McCollum district? Is the answer to that an endorsement factor? Consider further information:
Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority meeting minutes, Feb. 6, 2007:
Federal 2008 appropriations requests
A motion was made by Commissioner Parker, seconded by Commissioner Carter, to approve the Federal 2008 appropriations requests.
Commissioner Parker noted that the language for the Rush Line request read “Commuter bus service”; she recommended the language be changed to “transit service”.
Roll call vote was taken:
WHEREAS, The Minnesota Congressional delegation has recognized the importance of transit improvements to Minnesota and advocated successfully for funding for the improvements in previous years;
Now, Therefore Be It
RESOLVED, That the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority requests federal 2008
appropriations for:
(1) Central Corridor: Preliminary and advanced engineering
Amount of request: $15 million
(2) Union Depot: Engineering, property acquisition, construction, to facilitate implementation of the multi
modal transit hub
Amount of request: $5 million
(3) Rush Line Corridor: Design, construction of park ride facilities and funding for startup of transit service
Amount of request: $5 million
[...]
7. Cambridge Line presentation
Commissioner Reinhardt noted that the RCRRA had requested a presentation of the Cambridge Line, as it is the passenger rail line that runs from Duluth to Hinckley and then Hinckley to Minneapolis. Commissioner Reinhardt commented that the Rail Authority had expressed an interest in having the line run to St. Paul.Commissioner Roecker indicated that St. Louis County is open to developing a cost for the passenger rail feasibility study to include analysis of the Hinckley to St. Paul portion of the line.
Mr. El Tinklenberg, of Tinklenberg Group, gave the presentation.
Folks at a meeting together can get to know and trust one another, a possible cause and explanation of the endorsement, irrespective of their own pet projects, or in Tinklenberg's case, pet cash-flow yielding contracts.
Also, a Nov. 2007 Triple-A pro-GOP report, with this interesting factoid:
The $750,000 comprehensive feasibility study for the Rush Line will be financed by $600,000 in federal money that Oberstar also earmarked for planning the Rush, Red Rock and Central Corridor lines. The remaining $150,000 match will be contributed by municipalities along the proposed line, including Duluth. Another is the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe which operates Grand Casino in Hinckley, a presumed major destination within the Rush Line corridor.
And Triple-A linked over to this Isanti County March 2007 newspaper item on the same regional rail dream, Twin Cities -to- Duluth, a casino in between (that Indian gambling thing is what brought down lobbyist Abramhof, while the below quoted reference to the most powerful folks in Washington certainly appears as if it is first-person information from this quoted individual, i.e., one non-registered as a federal lobbyist but knowing or representing he explicitly knows what "the most powerful folks in Washington" think and do):
Elwin Tinklenberg from the Tinklenberg Group has attended several meetings regarding forming a passenger rail system, and said the idea has been very well received.
“It’s really interesting to be a part of a project that within six months went from a discussion phase to being talked about among the most powerful folks in Washington,” Tinklenberg said. “There is a lot of interest in this and a lot of support for it.”
The commuter rail system would offer rides for people to commute between the Twin Ports and Twin Cities with station sites along the way. These sites have yet to be determined, but may include north Minneapolis, Fridley, Andover, Bethel, Cambridge/Isanti, Mora/Pine City, Braham, Hinckley, Sandstone, Super, Duluth and Two Harbors.
Tinklenberg said a proposed budget of $585,000 is being looked at to form a joint powers board for the rail system. The most expensive portion of the budget is $385,000 budgeted for a technical feasibility study.
Triple-A's article pointed out:
The company tapped to perform that study is The Tinklenberg Group, and surprise surprise, guess who is running around Minnesota trying to con Cities and Counties into ponying up money to pay his company to perform the study, that will of course come to the predetermined conclusion that it makes perfect sense Federal funds be used to build the rail line.
Triple-A implies that Tinklenberg went about touting the thing without a shred of fair disclosure that his touting the thing was putting actual dollars of loot into his personal pocketbook. That is something he clearly also did in this "Summer 2007" tout-and-spin piece in spaceguide.com's Commercial Real Estate Guide, where he authored profusely about public-private transportation development partnership and specifically the Stone's Throw and Hassan Township thing involving Hassan Mainstreet LLC, for whom he was registered as lobbyist, at the time he wrote. But even with his and Tom Gump's photo featured in the article [Gump is a Tinklenberg campaign contributor], he writes the thing without a shred of any fair disclosure that his touting the thing was putting actual dollars of loot into his personal pocketbook [something that appears to bear frequent verbatim repeating when discussing Elwyn Tinklenberg's touting of things]:
This new intersection is critical to achieving the full job, tax base and development potential of the Stone’s Throw project in Hassan, but will benefit a much larger area as well. Hassan Mainstreet LLC, the folks behind Stone’s Throw, are using private dollars to help advance planning and environmental engineering work associated with the interchange and to match possible federal contributions to the project. The town and the city have entered into a joint powers agreement [...]
I just cannot help but whenever I hear or read about Elwyn Tinklenberg's touting anything, my first mental red-flag question is, "What's in it for him?"
How about you? Are you as much a skeptic?
So Tinklenberg, more of the same, the non-lobbyist knowing what the DC movers and shakers are discussing among themselves; and then the McCollum question unanswered.
So, why is this man smiling:
Do you think this smiling bike enthusiast may be a factor of any kind in the McCollum endorsement of Tinklenberg? Do you think that he might be a factor in her getting federal funds for that $900 million dollar project in her district? Do you suppose there might be more quid pro quo and mutual backscratching, in some three-way form beyond just one individual, McCollum, endorsing another individual, Elwyn Tinklenberg?
Interesting questions - and true answers would be interesting also, I expect.
With three people, two in Congress and one wanting to be, would we be foolish in considering it wholly proper to expect true answers from each of them?
One of them likes to go speak and write without disclosing to the people he's trying to influence about his financial stake in things, that we know, and then there are the other two - what should we grow to expect from each? We already know about taking anything Tinklenberg says with a grain of salt. And with that persistent and justified question, "What's in it for him."