By Barb Jeffers
“We are here today to recognize the accomplishments for the bonding bill and how that affects the project we have for our Wastewater Treatment Plant,” stated mayor of Lanesboro, Minn., Jason Resseman on Friday, October 23, 2020, as Representative Greg Davids and Senator Jeremy Miller presented him with the bonding bill signed by Governor Walz.
“We were able to, through the Public Facilities Authority (PFA) and the bonding bill, acquire over five million dollars for the project, which is definitely over half of the cost of the entire project,” notes Resseman.
“We were anxiously awaiting this bill’s passage, and fortunately they got it done for us. It’s going to be an integral part of allowing us to move forward with this much needed infrastructure improvement,” commented Resseman.
“Wednesday the house passed House File 1, which is the bonding bill, which normally would have been passed in May, but the way it turned out, there is a lot of good things – there is a lot of bricks and mortar, there is a lot of concrete and re-rod in this bill,” states Davids.
“Also added on here are a couple other provisions; of course, the one near and dear to my heart, other than Lanesboro, Caledonia and Chatfield, is the Section 179 expensing which is a tax provision which will be very important for small businesses and farmers,” Davids notes.
This includes “full, retroactive conformity to Section 179 of the federal tax code, a major reform that will allow farmers and other small business owners to deduct large equipment purchases,” according to mnsenaterepublicans.com.
The $1.36 billion bipartisan infrastructure bonding bill, which is general obligation bonding, will also provide critical funding for water and sewer improvements, roads and bridges and infrastructure upgrades at colleges and universities.
Miller explained the bonding bill further, saying, “$700 million for roads and bridges throughout the state, about $300 million for water and sewer infrastructure projects – which is where Lanesboro comes in, and $166 million for asset preservation and improvements on our colleges and universities throughout the state and the tax relief for small businesses that Representative Davids mentioned,” are all included in the bill.
“Included in that $300 million for water and sewer infrastructure is the remaining balance, roughly $1.4 million for the City of Lanesboro; this will come out of the PFA money and to finish off Lanesboro’s project,” stated Miller.
The City of Lanesboro is surely in need of a new Wastewater Treatment Plant, as the current facility “was built in 1938, and is the oldest municipal wastewater treatment facility in the State of Minnesota,” reports Resseman.
“We did everything on our part that we needed to do to move forward and Senator Miller and Representative Davids did what they needed to do to get this done in the bonding bill, whether it was for Lanesboro or just the region as a whole. We are very appreciative of what you have done. We understand that there was maybe some differences of opinion on how things needed to move forward so we appreciate your leadership in getting this done,” stated Resseman.
“It’s nice to see that issues can be set aside and when things need to get done, they get done, that are going to be beneficial to greater Minnesota,” commented Resseman.
“Truly it was a bipartisan effort and this bonding bill will provide a tremendous jobs and economic boost all across the State of Minnesota at a time when it is very much needed,” stated Miller. “Southeastern Minnesota definitely benefited greatly from this bonding bill from Lanesboro to Chatfield to Caledonia to Winona and all across southeastern Minnesota with significant projects,” added Miller.
“We were here a few weeks ago celebrating the ribbon-cutting of the renovation of the dam project and here we are a few weeks later celebrating the bonding for the next project in the pipeline,” Miller noted.
“It truly was a collaborative effort from the mayor and Michele (Peterson, City Administrator) – the project would not be moving forward without your efforts,” said Miller.
“Where credit is due, I would say that my predecessor Mayor Robin Krom started this project about six years ago, and then Mayor Autumn Johnson took the reins with it for her two-year term as mayor, then Michele (Peterson) and I, as we started our term, that we wanted to continue with the understanding of the importance of this project to the community as a whole,” added Resseman.
“There were four other council members, at least, that were involved with this, at least in my term, and as you know we have our own utilities commission so there was a lot of work put forward by those three individuals as well, so I appreciate the credit you give Michele and I, but really, it’s the volunteers that we have on our commissions that help these processes move forward,” stated Resseman.
“I have always said, and will continue to say, our council and town is only as good as the volunteers that come on these commissions because this gives us a broader scope of what’s going on in our community and a better voice of our community, and they definitely do not get the credit they deserve,” said Resseman.
“We anticipate the project will start here in the next couple weeks, weather depending. We do obviously have the location down by the 250 bridge in the flats. We did acquire a property just to the east of that to make the site a little bigger so we can work with setbacks and ordinances we have,” explained Resseman. The project was designed by Bolton & Menk.
“Because it is somewhat close to a residential area, there has been a lot of discussion and interest as far as screening that would go into this project, so there will be extensive screening, because it is an entrance to the town and we understand the importance of that as people come to visit us, as well as the impact on our neighborhood, so all that was a strong consideration as we approved the design of this facility,” relayed Resseman.
Representative Davids, Senator Miller and Mayor Resseman thanked Governor Walz for signing the bill. Davids showed his appreciation to Senator Miller, saying, “It was amazing work you did over there,” explaining that Miller shepherded the bill through the senate while he worked it through the house.
Davids thanked Representative Mary Murphy, the Democratic Chair from Hermantown, Minn., and Representative Dean Urdahl, of Grove City, Minn., who was the lead, “but most of all today, I would thank Michele, Mayor Resseman, Robin Krom and Autumn Johnson,” Davids said.
“I’m very thankful for Representative Paul Marquart, he is the Democratic Chairman of the Tax Committee from Dilworth, Minn. He and I worked together, we each had bills and we kind of put together I think the best for both, and that is in this bill also. So it’s not just bonding, but we were able to get some tax provisions in here too, which I think are really good,” noted Davids.
“It was a collaborative effort of the local officials working with the state officials in a bipartisan way – these things don’t happen at the state level without working together and working across the aisle, and that’s how we got it done,” stated Miller.
“We look forward to this project servicing the community for another 50 to 60 years at least, is what our anticipation is,” said Resseman.
Photo by Barb Jeffers
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