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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It is not totally clear. However, State money apparently has been earmarked for a Ramsey Northstar rail stop.

The Minnesota Senate has a page with bills, presumably with the text there being as signed by Dayton, without any line item veto [I saw nothing along those lines in any reporting].

Strib reported Dayton signed twelve bills, and the Senate site has that number identified.

This page, from the Bonding Bill text as posted by the Senate, page 20 of 43 pages (click to enlarge and read):


Line 20.26 mentions a Northstar stop in Ramsey. It appears the provision is inclusive of $20,000,000 for the series of identified things, money to be routed through Met Council.

There is not language about building, or right-of-way acquisition, i.e., purchase of rights from BNSF who owns the tracks and the right-of-way.

If any reader can help, please leave a comment. I shall send the mayor and city administrator an email suggesting that between them they submit an explanatory comment, by direct posting or routed via email.

The bill wording is weasel wording, but what else do you expect. It appears that the city may be unable to say much about what is to happen until Met Council speaks first. Bill lines 20.20 to 20.24 mention acquiring property, and the word "construct" is in there. Purchase of rights from BNSF is acquisition of property, and the "construct" word is used vaguely, along with "infrastructure" being mentioned. As to whether Met Council would contemplate spending in Ramsey beyond site prep and design, vs. partial funding of BNSF dealings, and actual building of a facility as part of things are things that remain unclear.

___________UPDATE__________
I reopened the Senate bonding bill text, and did a search for "Northstar." The only hit was for the Ramsey stop. That suggests that in the bonding bill there was nothing for extension of the rail line to or toward St. Cloud (cf. this earlier post about Levy of Strib reporting that there was a contest for pork cutlets that way).

(That was doing that "Northstar" search on only one of the twelve bills, and not searching all the texts for "St. Cloud" to see what pork they got. Nor did I search the bonding bill for "St. Cloud.")

From that limited evidence, my best guess is those uptrack from Big Lake got no rail extension from the special session.

Yet, the good folks in that town did not, however, go without a share of pork.

$43 million for an SCSU lab, (but not for their wanted civic center dreams).

This link.

Read that item quickly, since I have no idea how long that paper keeps their things online.

_____________FURTHER UPDATE______________
My understanding is that Met Council met yesterday afternoon, so that detail regarding the Ramsey-Northstar slice of the twenty million dollar pie may soon be public info.

Google rules. Going to Google and to Bing with the same three-word search this morning yielded zilch from Bing, one relevant hit from Google.

Search = ramsey minnesota northstar

This MPR hit, this excerpt:

July 20, 2011 -- St. Paul, Minn. — The nearly $500 million bonding bill signed into law Wednesday will borrow $10 million for local road maintenance and safety improvements.

The bill also designates nearly $56 million dollars toward the state's transportation infrastructure, which includes $33 million for local bridge repair and replacement. Twin Cities transitways will receive $20 million for projects that include the 35W south Bus Rapid Transit line, or BRT, and the Cedar Avenue BRT line.

[...] The bill also includes money to help fund construction of a Northstar commuter rail line station in Ramsey, and additional development of a Minneapolis Interchange facility near Target Field.

Metropolitan Council chairwoman Sue Haigh said including those and other projects in the bonding bill helps bolster the region's search for federal dollars.

The Google return said "12 hours ago," so their news spidering indeed rules the Web.

Perhaps the "thinking" [excuse making?] of Darren, the mayor, the gang-of-four is that by making a capital-based bond-and-lend deal, Flaherty-&-Collins and the city may get federal dollars for the ramp-wrap-rental. Sure.

There is some credibility to postulating that scenario for the Northstar stop, getting Met Council money and the city putting cash into the stop, partially capitalizing it along with Anoka County adding a share, might get a portion federally funded. We wait to see.

There is sense to that, regarding Northstar.

It is nonsense regarding the ramp-rental giveaway.

_____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
Bodley of ABC Newspapers reports that metro bus service in Anoka County will not be cut, according to a Met Council spokesperson, fares will not be increased, and the only curtailments would be routine on routes with insufficient ridership. This is reported as the result of budget compromises enacted during the special session. This link, for the Bodley report.