Lori Sturdevant: New state representative hits the ground 'swimming'

STOCKTON, MINN. - A week earlier, Steve Drazkowski had taken an oath and had become state Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Wabasha. On Thursday, he was the unmuddied guy in the back of a roomful of about 100 flood-weary constituents, assembled for a recovery briefing.

Not many appeared to recognize their newly elected state representative. One who did unloaded a complaint.

Why should I have to pay $35 to have my electricity reconnected? Is that the state's doing? asked Deanna Barnholtz, who was cleaning up the sewer backup in her basement that came with the deluge in southeastern Minnesota last weekend.

Drazkowski listened sympathetically. "I'll look into it," he vowed, writing a note on a legal pad covered with similar jottings.

"They say you're supposed to hit the ground running" as a new legislator, Drazkowski said. "Somebody sent me an e-mail saying that I had hit it swimming."

Previous legislators have arrived in office by way of a special election and plunged immediately into work. But Drazkowski's initiation has to be unique in state annals -- as singular as the record rainfall of Aug. 18-19 that battered dozens of communities in six counties, including much of his District 28B.

It falls to the fiscally conservative former ag extension agent to represent people who need government now in a way few of them likely expected or imagined.

"It's a large responsibility, but it's what I signed up for," Drazkowski said.

He did a smart thing Sunday morning, when the magnitude of the crisis in his district became evident. He called a 20-year veteran, DFL Rep. Gene Pelowski of similarly afflicted Winona, for advice.

"He said you get your boots on and go talk to people. You survey the situation. You sit back and listen. You don't jump to conclusions. Get a good idea of what the needs are" before deciding how to respond.

That pretty well describes how Drazkowski spent his first full week on the job. Occasionally, he offered an answer or a referral. But mostly he listened and thought about how the Legislature could help with recovery.

By Thursday, he had a few ideas. Purchases for materials with which to repair flood-damaged homes and businesses should be exempt from the state sales tax, he ventured. Any state surplus identified by the next revenue forecast should be earmarked for the state's required match of federal disaster relief funds -- "without raising taxes on Minnesotans. I'm conservative, you know."

Southeastern Minnesota should become a five-year tax-free zone, JOBZ writ large, sparing employers from state and local taxation, he proposed.

And the state would reimburse the city, county and schools that would lose funds as a result?

"I haven't thought that far ahead," Drazkowski said. "But anything we can do to decrease the oppressive tax liability on businesses, we should."

Shrinking government by cutting taxes didn't seem uppermost on other minds Thursday. Mayor Jack Roberts of Stockton -- where a white ranch house was still memorably perched on a railroad track blocks from its foundation -- asked Drazkowski to try to accelerate a pending state small-cities development grant that could help his town rebuild.

Mayor Jack Weimerskirch of hard-hit Goodview wants state money, too, he said at a state-county-local officials' meeting in Winona. Goodview is spending money it doesn't have to drain polluted water from homes and businesses, with no assurance that the work qualifies for federal reimbursement.

If Drazkowski's notes matched mine, the government-services wish list he accumulated Thursday included these items: Garbage removal. Road repair. Bridge inspection. School buses that will bring displaced children to their usual schools. Potable water. Protection from looters. Faster housing inspection. Help paying city and county overtime costs.

That's for starters. I'd call it an eye-opening new-legislator orientation seminar on the importance of government.