Random Thoughts

I received a call tonight from a friend of my who was out at the Freeborn County Fair today.
He told me that the Republican booth was lacking their nice big pictures of President George W Bush and VP Dick Cheney. Gee what happened Guys and Gals don't tell me that you want to forget the last 7 years too.

My friend also told me that the Freeborn County GOP was going to give away $20.00 for free gasoline in a drawing on Sunday. So I decided to do the math and when I figured in the price of gas at today's price of 3.59 a gallon the total gas you will win in the drawing is 5.6 gallons. They must figure that they can't afford to five away a full tank because it would cost them to much. So being the conservatives that they are they must of figured that a quarter of a tank was enough.

My friend also said that the Freeborn County DFL was giving away some Tim Walz T-shirts which lasted less then 10 minutes before they were all gone. He also said that the Robin Brown Fans were going like hot cakes. On a day like today I would take a Robin Brown fan over a GOP Sticker any day.

I'm Shocked

As I was web surfing tonight I noticed that Minnesota 20/20 has done a report on road safety. A survey of Minnesota's County Highway Engineers has brought some interesting facts about the roads and bridges in our state , such as:

• Nearly three-quarters of county engineers surveyed say the roads and bridges they maintain have deteriorated in the past decade as costs and traffic demands have risen while state support has stagnated.
• The falloff in county road and bridge quality and safety has persisted despite a doubling of local property taxes dedicated to roads and bridges in 10 years, to an estimated $1.6 billion in 2006
• 4% of county engineers surveyed say they have even returned 20th century paved roads to 19th century style gravel or dirt roads
• New state-level road and bridge financing enacted this year over Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto will ease the situation somewhat, but "not enough to make a real difference." More than 92 percent of county engineers surveyed said the revenue increases won't allow them to meet their transportation goals.

County engineers that responded to the survey stated in their recommendations that, the state should adopt recommendations of the Minnesota County Engineers Association, particularly:

• Inflation indexing of the gasoline tax, which lost nearly half its buying power in the 20 years between the two most recent increases.
• Authority for counties to levy annual wheelage taxes of up to $20 per vehicle for roads and bridges.
• Some form of road impact fees to defray a fair share of the actual costs of real estate development
and heavier truck traffic on county roads.
• Increased state general obligation bonding to repair or replace aging local bridges.

In a Poll taken of the county engineers when asked what strategies they used to meet road and bridge funding challenges

70% said they had to increase property taxes. But the number that really jumped out at me was that 44% of county engineers stated that that they had cut snowplowing and other maintenance efforts because of lack of funding.

That is not right! We are talking about public safety here, yours , mine, our children and our grandchildren safety. Yes we need to find ways to keep our roads safe but cutting maintenance and snow plowing is NOT the way to go.