Monday, March 18, 2013
An Eagan legislator has backed a proposal that would allow municipalities to post public notices online, rather than paying to have them placed in local newspapers.
Like looking through the foreclosure notices, public meeting announcements and meeting minutes in your local newspaper? Those days may soon be at an end, if a bill co-sponsored by District 51B Rep. Laurie Halverson (DFL) is signed into law. The bill, HF 1286, would allow municipalities, like your local city or county government, to publish public notices on their own websites, in place of or in addition to a community's "newspaper of record." A municipality that chooses this method would still have to make print copies of its notices available for review, and publish a notice once annually in a local newspaper alerting residents to the website address. In other political news around the county: The Mill Towns state trail may get an …
Monday, March 11, 2013
Keep track of local politics with Patch's weekly southeast metro legislative review.
Rep. Sandra Masin (DFL) isn't a big fan of Minnesota's wolf hunting season. The Burnsville legislator signed on as the co-author to a bill that would reinstate a five-year moratorium on wolf hunting in the state. After the five-year ban, the state could only open hunting seasons on wolves if population management is deemed necessary and other mans for controlling the wolf population are explored. The bill, introduced on March 4, was authored by District 42B Rep. Jason Isaacson (DFL). In other political news from around the southeast metro: Last month, Eagan Sen. Jim Carlson (DFL) authored a bill pushing for steeper penalties for careless or reckless drivers whose actions cause a deadly accident or severe injuries. The bill recently earned …
Monday, January 21, 2013
Burnsville Sen. Dan Hall called recent bills to expand the sales tax to clothing and digital purchases "disappointing."
The battle over the budget got an early start this past week when DFLer Sen. Ann Rest introduced bills that would lift the sale tax exemption on clothing and expand it into online retailing—specifically media downloads like music, movies and TV shows. With DFL majorities in both houses of the legislature and the governor's mansion, the bills are likely to pass, though that hasn't precluded some grumbling from the greatly diminished Republican contingent. "With the current state of the economy, it's disappointing to see tax increases proposed and anticipated," Burnsville Sen. Dan Hall wrote in his weekly legislative update. "This is not the right direction to take our state. The truth is: the state does not have a revenue problem, it has a…
