Moorhead City Council

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Governmental Affairs Director, Lisa Bode

Governmental affairs director Lisa Bode shared a full plate of gratitude with the Moorhead City Council Monday … both for decisions that have helped the city secure some long-needed objectives, and for the active participation of Mayor Shelly Carlson and the eight members of the council in the education and lobbying process in St. Paul.

The city official, who spent as much as 40% of her time monitoring progress during the session, said unified support helped convince legislators to fund many of the city’s top goals. She and city officials made six two- and three-day trips to St. Paul in the month prior to convening the legislative session; she was back, accompanied by various colleagues, 11 more times before it adjourned in May. She called the local delegation of District 4 Sen. Rob Kupec and Reps. Heather Keeler of 4A and Jim Joy of 4B critical to Moorhead’s efforts. “This is a team sport,” she emphasized. “We all played a part in achieving the good results I’m able to report tonight.

“The Legislature was very good to Moorhead. But we didn’t get everything we wanted,” she conceded, pointing to the $13 million gap that persists in completing the city’s 24-year flood mitigation efforts, even after $11 million appropriated by the 2023 session. “But we’re grateful for what we got, and we’re working right now on a request for the rest next year.”

The Minnesota Department of Transportation had challenged the city to come up with $12 million to cover the inflationary impact on the 11th Street underpass project. “We didn’t even know we’d need it until late December, when we got updated estimates,” Bode says. Engineers were able to save $2 million toward that shortfall by adjusting the timing of several phases of the project. The Legislature came through with the remaining $10 million.

Those are the biggest numbers. But the governmental affairs director noted that some bills that largely flew under the radar will have positive results here at home.

One was a special sales tax exemption on all supplies and equipment purchased by the city for the upcoming community center and regional library project passed as part of the tax bill That measure alone will save about $1 million, money that can be turned toward other needs. “It means the local sales tax that’s now in place to fund the center will go that much farther,” she observes, noting the irony within the situation.

She credited other measures with a positive local impact to collaboration with the League of Minnesota Cities and the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities. Among them: An increase of $80 million in Local Government Aid, with an estimated local impact of $900,000, and a one-time appropriation of $300 million statewide for public safety, including nearly $2 million for Moorhead; and preservation of the Border City Enterprise Zone and Disparity Reduction Credit Programs.