| Council discusses letter to governor |
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By Joel Stottrup The Princeton City Council was given an update last week on the events in which the governor derided Princeton for calling its proposed public safety building a regional one. Gov. Tim Pawlenty made the assertion during a press conference at the capitol early last week. He said the Princeton request for state funding for the building was a perfect example of what was wrong in the bonding requests.
Princeton City Development Director Jay Blake told the council that Pawlenty had said the public safety building that Princeton wants is “just a nice police and fire station for the city” and should not get state funding help. Pawlenty took issue with the city calling the proposal building a regional type, Blake said. Riddle was not able to deliver the letter himself last Thursday so council member Paul Whitcomb and Blake took it to the state capitol in St. Paul. The city of Princeton had requested $3,301,000 in state bonding to pay toward the estimated $6.6 million cost of the city’s proposed public safety building. It would not only replace the city’s overcrowded fire station which serves the city and various townships, but would also replace the police station and serve regional needs. Probably the biggest selling point Princeton has for the regional aspect is that it would be a relocation/decontamination center. Princeton and Rogers are designated to be the two centers that would handle people being evacuated from Monticello if there was ever a catastrophe at the plant in Monticello.
Right now Princeton would use the high school for the decontamination and temporary relocation. The governor was not at his office when Blake and Whitcomb brought the mayor’s letter to the capitol so they left it with the governor’s secretary. Blake noted that Sen. Lisa Fobbe, DFL – Zimmerman, who represents the Princeton area, then brought Blake and Whitcomb to the basement of the capitol where press outlets have offices. Blake and Whitcomb spent more than an hour telling their story about the public safety building request to various news reporters there. According to Blake he and Whitcomb spoke to people from channels 2, 4, 9 and 11, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota News Network, Minnesota Public Radio and ECM Publishers. “They were very happy and cordial to us,” Whitcomb said. Blake quoted some of the reporters there as indicating they thought the governor was “picking on Princeton.” Other than Whitcomb’s comments, there was no significant discussion by the council in response to the update. The mayor in his letter explained that Princeton’s request for the state help had gotten both Republican and DFL support in the Legislature. Riddle had also said that the city was not seeking any help for a sports arena. Riddle noted, in fact, that Princeton Youth Hockey Association had recently built a second ice arena without any government financial support. The only thing the city did was give technical assistance so the association could get municipal bonding, Riddle wrote. The request from Princeton for the state bonding assistance is in a bill the Legislature passed this session. If the governor should sign the bill then the state would borrow money through bonding to meet the requests in the bill. The Legislature had intended to give the bill to the governor more than a week ago for signing but held it back in light of the governor’s written intent that he would veto it. Comments (0)
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