I repesent the City of Eden Prairie to an organization known as the Municipal Legislative Commission (MLC). The MLC tracks legislation and influences legislators (I hope) in the interest of a group of eleven suburban communities including Plymouth, Minntonka, Edina, Eden Prairie, Bloomington, Woodbury, etc.
We are especially engaged with MLC right now because the State Legislature is engaged in the business of writing a tax bill that we’ll have to live with for the next twelve months or so. There are several different versions of tax bills floating around out there. One posed by the Governor. Another by House Republicans. Another by Senate Democrats. There are a couple of others that are in serious contention.
Tax bills make enemies and friends. Will the central cities team up with outstate cities to pass a bill that is hard on the suburbs? Will the suburbs court the interests of the sentral cities against the interests of outstate cities? Or, will every city-based interest group fight each other to a draw.
An interesting article from the Southwest Journal describes a new way to look at Minneapolis and its relationship with the state economy. Conventional wisdom is that central cities are necessary, but they are net receivers of state financial assistance. That may be true in St. Paul, but this article argues that Minneapolis is different. This article almost goes as far as saying that Minneapolis has more in common with its suburbs than it does with St. Paul or with outstate cities.
I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but it does set the table for an interesting discussion between Minneapolis and the suburbs of, at least, Hennepin County. Maybe we should ally ourselves and advocate for a common-interest tax bill. It might be possibe this year.
Maybe…..
