Dear Neighbor,
It's meeting season as we get closer and closer to the 2016 session beginning in March. I attended a buffer-strip meeting today, am hosting town halls in Freeport and Albany this Saturday and will be at an ag roundtable in Alex on Tuesday.
Here's the rundown:
I will be hosting town hall meetings this Saturday, Feb. 6 in Freeport (9 a.m., Charlie's Café, 115 Main St. E.) and Albany (11 a.m., Albany City Hall, 400 Railroad Ave.). Last weekend's town halls in Glenwood, Sauk Centre and Melrose went well and I look for more of the same this time.
Some fellow legislators and I will be hosting an agriculture roundtable discussion 10 a.m. to noon Feb. 9 at the college in Alex (Room 209). All are welcome and potential topics of discussion include farm business management, farm safety, avian influenza, production research, biofuels and more.
A productive meeting in Chokio took place earlier today and the public weighed in on the governor's new buffer law, which stipulates public ditches must have a 16.5-foot buffer around them. The turnout was quite impressive. We met at the fire station and they had to pull trucks outside to make more room.
People had many good questions regarding everything from property taxes to compensation, to whether we will have data showing if buffer strips are serving the intended purpose, and what the specific goals are in the first place.
Another subject we talked about is one that made news several days ago: The governor has instructed the DNR to limit its mapping of buffer strips to public waters and ditches. There had been strong concern the DNR would expand its buffer maps beyond the legislative intent of this law by including private waters. It is good to see the intent will be honored.
Thank you to fellow House member Jeff Backer of Browns Valley for doing a great job organizing the buffer event. Also thank you to Denny McNamara of Hastings, chair of the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee, for participating.
Stay in touch and I will be back with more news soon.
Sincerely,
Paul