What did you do for the Presidents Day holiday? I helped my wife clean the house. I did some laundry. And I helped my son with an essay he is writing about Bolivia.
And I also testified at the a meeting of the Minnesota House Higher Education and Workforce Development Finance and Policy Committee meeting last night in St. Paul. That’s Rep. Ruud and I at the witness desk next to the display board. This is the first committee to take up House File 2842 which is the bill introduced by Rep. Maria Ruud in the Minnesota House of Representatives seeking $6.8 million dollars of state funds to do a complete renovation of Camp Eden Wood. There has been a companion bill prepared in the Senate, but it has not been introduced yet.
The committee hearing started at 6:00 pm. Our bill was heard at around 8:20pm. Not bad, actually. I was expecting 10pm. The committee heard about thirty bills last night, all of them seeking state bonding bill funds for local projects. Mora wants a new senior center. Walker wants a new water line. Austin wants better flood protection. Rochester wants state financial assistance to expand the Mayo Civic Center. Duluth wants state money to expand their civic center.
Our project received a good reception. After exchanging a few opening greetings in Croatian with the chair of the committee, Rep. Tom Rukavina, Representative Ruud introduced the bill. She said a few words about the project and then turned the microphone over to me to tell the committee members what we want and why we want it. We took a few questions from the the committee. Nothing too deep or difficult. Then the committee voted our bill out of their committee and on to the House Capital Investments Committee. I don’t know when we will appear at that committee, but I bet that it will be soon. This is supposed to be a short session so time frames are compressed.
Presidents Day was a good day for the Camp Eden Wood project.
