Rep. Denny McNamara, the lead House Republican on environmental issues, urged his colleagues Tuesday to close Minnesota's two state-run tree nurseries, saying they took business away from privately run nurseries.
In the end, despite protests from the state Department of Natural Resources, legislators listened to the five-term representative from Hastings: A provision to keep the bare-root seedling nurseries open was defeated as part of far-reaching House legislation that scales back state environmental spending.
What McNamara did not tell his colleagues was also noteworthy. For more than 30 years, his family has owned a large tree nursery in Hastings, which is now owned by his son. McNamara also is the past president of the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association, a trade group that has advocated closure of the 80-year-old state nurseries.
McNamara said he and a partner sold the 125-acre Hoffman & McNamara Nursery and Landscape in Hastings in 2004 to McNamara's son, Michael. The McNamara nursery, he said, has specialized in aspects of the nursery business that have never put it in competition with the state nurseries and said he had no conflict of interest. "It's a lot less of a conflict than a school teacher voting for an education bill," said McNamara, who chairs the House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee.
On Tuesday, McNamara was the chief author of the House omnibus environmental bill that passed on a 72-to-57 vote, with DFLers objecting during a five-hour debate to the legislation's budget cuts. Closing the two nurseries would save $4.6 million, according to DNR estimates.
Bob Fitch, the executive director of the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association, said the group has long criticized the state's nurseries. "They definitely stifle the growth of [private] nurseries," Fitch said. With McNamara's help, he said, the closing of the nurseries had moved closer to reality than it ever has.
"Obviously, we're thrilled that he's chair of the [House] committee and believe that his leadership on issues such as this is vital to our interests," Fitch said.
Fitch said, however, that McNamara did not have a personal conflict of interest.
The two state nurseries, at Willow River and Akeley, in Pine and Hubbard counties, respectively, are the largest suppliers of native forest tree seed in Minnesota, supplying 90 percent of native seedlings to public and private landowners across the state and subjecting them to a rigorous quality control that, agency officials say, would be unavailable if landowners were forced to buy out of state. Agency officials say it would take at least three years for private nurseries to provide the same volume.
"We've been in this discussion and battle for 20 years about them trying to get us out of business," Olin Phillips, a state DNR official who runs the nurseries, said of private nursery owners. "I know Denny ... we philosophically differ."
Mike Kaszuba • 651-222-1673