Gov. Mark Dayton will be on a mysterious quest for Minnesota jobs on Wednesday.
"Tomorrow, Governor Dayton, Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben, and a DEED staff member will be traveling out of state for a meeting regarding a possible economic development opportunity for Minnesota. The Governor will leave by commercial flight tomorrow morning and return home tomorrow afternoon," his office said of the trip late Tuesday.
Asked if he could provide more information about the travels, Dayton spokesman Matt Swenson said, "I can't. That was all we could release."
Swenson said he did not know if the "economic development opportunity" would involve a public subsidy.
In April, DFL leaders, including Dayton, came under fire for including a multimillion dollar subsidy for medical firm Baxter International to move jobs to Minnesota in a bill without disclosing the name of the company. In communications with state officials the deal had been called only "Project Fern," because officials had agreed to keep the name of the company private while they worked on providing it breaks to develop in Minnesota.
The Baxter subsidy became law in May as did several other multimillion dollar tax breaks designed to induce private companies to build or expand in Minnesota.
