A Tuesday board workshop to discuss public transit in Washington County became heated at times as commissioners debated the role of the Metropolitan Council and the worthiness of the county's new transit sales tax.

Commissioners Bill Pulkrabek and Gary Kriesel questioned why the county would spend an estimated $400,000 from its share of the sales tax revenue to fund commuter bus routes in 2009 from Forest Lake to Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Metropolitan Council, they said, should be paying for that service.

"I feel I'm being held hostage here by the Met Council," Kriesel said. "It's just flat-out wrong that we're subsidizing them."

Pulkrabek took issue as well with the new Counties Transit Improvement Board, formed to divvy up the transit sales tax revenue in the five participating metro counties. Under the agreement, Washington County will get $950,000 next year, which is about a quarter of the sales tax revenue the county will produce.

"We're getting totally ripped off," Pulkrabek said. "We're getting crumbs off the table, and we're supposed to be happy about it?"

But Commissioners Dennis Hegberg and Myra Peterson responded that the alternative to county funding of the Forest Lake commuter buses next year would be to stop the service. They said that the Met Council would fund the commuter buses in 2010 and thereafter if Forest Lake joined the metropolitan transit taxing district, which means city residents would be assessed for transit services on their property taxes.

Don Theisen, the county's public works director, suggested that the county notify Forest Lake city officials of the importance of joining the taxing district to ensure commuter buses continue into 2010.

Also attending the workshop was a new commissioner, Lisa Weik, who won a seat in the recent election to represent Woodbury.

Because Tuesday's workshop was informational only, the five commissioners are expected to decide at their regular meeting next week how the sales tax revenue should be spent. If a majority favors funding the commuter buses from Forest Lake, about $554,000 will remain to spend on a transit study of the Interstate 94 corridor or other projects.

Kriesel said after the workshop that it would be difficult to predict the vote and that he isn't sure what position he'll take.

Kevin Giles • 651-298-1554