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YMC board meets with state lawmakers

GRANITE FALLS — A variety of rural concerns took center stage Tuesday in a public policy discussion between Yellow Medicine County commissioners and their state legislators.

Minnesota State Sen Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, and State Rep Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, met with the board for a half-hour review of the 2019 legislative session. It also served as a look ahead to items likely to be addressed in the 2020 session, a biennium year in which the next two-year state budget cycle will be set in motion.

Topics at the forefront of Tuesday’s discussion included ditch mowing regulations, the reclassification of seed corn dealership storage sites from agricultural to commercial for tax purposes, guidelines for having night lights on wind turbines, and requirements for emergency dispatchers to encourage callers to administer basic CPR.

Dahms and Swedzinski emphasized the need to build statewide awareness of rural economics and the need to have state policies that can lead to rural vitality.

“Some of our state agencies and other outside special interests want to expand their influence over what happens in rural areas,” Swedzinski said. “That could shape who eventually owns most of the land in our counties. It wouldn’t be people who live on it and send their kids to our schools.”

Commissioner Gary Johnson brought up the seed corn facilities tax issue. He said seed corn dealers voiced the concern to him about being singled out for a new commercial designation while other commercially-driven enterprises on rural property were allowed to keep an agricultural classification.

Dahms and Swedzinski replied that it’s a case in point of how far state officials should go in giving what’s basically farm property or personal property a commercial label.

“If we stretched it out far enough it could be applied to Uber drivers or people who sometimes rent out their homes for a weekend,” Swedzinski said. “They’re using their property for something that’s commercial, but there’s a point when a commercial tax shouldn’t be applied. We also have to consider how much revenue is involved and how the tax change would affect people.”

He said the same kind of consideration should come into play with how wind turbine construction might impact nearby residences.

When possible, he said efforts should be made to limit the daily light reflection and spinning noise when turbines rotate. One current opportunity is the use of motion activated lights that help with night time air traffic but don’t shine throughout the night.

Dahms said expectations for ditch mowing enforced in the past several years, such as specific signage and warning lights for mowers, are being refined to remove unneeded mandates. He added that overly strict regulation leads to issues with both enforcement and public safety.

“It’s a real safety issue on rural roads to have six-foot tall grass growing in ditches,” he said. “The enforcement process is also an issue. I can’t see officers spending a lot of time to check on ditch mowing when they also have to be ready to respond to accidents and speeding.”

Yellow Medicine County Sheriff Bill Flatten spoke about another constraint on local law enforcement by mentioning new CPR-related expectations for dispatchers.

He said they were approved statewide after lobbying from health advocates, with the hope that it could save lives by keeping someone alive until an ambulance arrives. It might, ironically, impede the overall response process if two or more emergencies happen at almost the same time.

“It’s impractical for dispatchers to try to instruct someone who hasn’t been taught CPR,” Flatten said. “We can’t do it in a way that the guideline intends. That would take additional staff.”

In looking ahead to 2020, local lawmakers said they hope to address many of those specific concerns while taking a long term practical approach to the state governing process.

“In the past year there was negotiation and compromise between the Governor, House and Senate,” Dahms said. “It led to a pretty good session. We ended up with something most of us felt we could live with.”

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