Video: Dayton promised to veto attempts to sidestep Lessard-Sams Council

People might disagree with Mark Dayton's politics. But those who know the governor say he's a good guy who tells the truth.

We'll see about that.

Attached to this blog is a short video taken at Game Fair during Dayton's campaign for the governor's office. In it, Dayton commits to his complete support of the state's sportsmen and women, and the recommendations of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council in its annual habitat funding recommendations to the Legislature.

The council recommends habitat projects to be paid from the Outdoor Heritage Fund (OHF), created in 2008 by passage of the Legacy Act.

The issue is considered critical by hunters and anglers, among other conservationists, because the Legislature has an abysmal record of funding natural resources stewardship, and a better record of routing money to pet projects that was intended instead to clean the state's waters and conserve, enhance and restore wildlife habitat.

Here — as you can see by watching the video — is Dayton stating his unequivocal support for the council, its "authority'' and his promised veto of any legislative attempts to fund projects not approved by the council.

"I just want everyone to know that if I'm governor, the sportsmen and women of this state are going to have a friend in the governor's office. I will veto any legislative attempt to usurp the authority of the Lessard-Sams Council.''

The issue is critical, the groups believe, because the metro parks appropriation from the OHF was rejected by the council before being included by the House in its Legacy bill and, ultimately, in a House-Senate conference committee agreement.
Similarly, the council didn't approve — or even have a chance to review — the invasive species appropriation.

The 12-member Lessard–Sams council comprises eight citizens and four legislators. Its charge — transparent, democratic and open to the public — is to review scores of habitat proposals from throughout the state and recommend those for OHF funding that are science-based, economically efficient and have the most potential to benefit the state's land, water, fish and wildlife.

The OHF is one of four funds created by the Legacy Act, an amendment to the constitution that fractionally increases the sales tax and dedicates the money to fish, game and wildlife habitat, the arts and cultural heritage, clean water and parks and trails.

About $300 million annually flows into the funds, $100 million for game, fish and wildlife, $100 million for clean water, about $60 million for the arts and cultural heritage and $40 million for parks and trails.

Habitat should be science-based

The point of the OHF never was to plant trees or other habitat helter-skelter throughout the state, but instead to help heal its landscape on a grander scale by targeting projects — one building upon another — within watersheds and other natural geographic delineations.

Nor did supporters of the Legacy Act, which was first conceived by hunters and anglers hoping to model a similar conservation plan in Missouri, imagine that beneficiaries of one fund, say parks and trails, would try to gain money from another, in this case the OHF.

The Senate this session has stood by the Lessard-Sams council's OHF recommendations, while the House added the parks plan and made other significant changes to the council's recommendations, including the invasive species appropriation.

Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis and chair of the House Legacy Committee, has said legislators have the right as elected officials to change the recommendations, adding that in her belief the Lessard-Sams council is biased again the metro area.

But about 10 percent of the council's funding recommendations has been directed to the seven-county metro, and 14 percent goes to the greater metro — relatively more than the two represent as percentages of the state land mass.
Metro habitat projects also are significantly more expensive than greater Minnesota wildlife projects, which oftentimes also are paid for with matching funds from conservation groups or state or federal wildlife agencies.

But Kahn defended reviving the parks idea in the House bill even as it received criticism by a who's-who of state conservation and environment groups.

The university-area legislator said in her committee she believes ducks need habitat where they eat "breakfast and lunch'' near her home in downtown Minneapolis, not only in greater Minnesota.

Her office didn't respond to an email request for comment on Monday.

Conservation groups — including Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy and Pheasants Forever, among many others — say that Kahn, various park lobbyists and other metro legislators, including House Speaker and one-time gubernatorial candidate Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, are trying to get their foot in the OHF door to secure Legacy money for the metro not only this session, but in future years as well.
Thissen has said it's important to keep outdoor activities and relatively wild places available to the state's large urban population.

Lance Ness, president of the Fish and Wildlife Legislative Alliance, has another view.
"It's pork politics at its plainest,'' he said.

Senate Legacy bill author Sen. Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, said in this committee many voters who backed the 2008 amendment believed a citizen-dominated council would be established to keep politics as far away as possible from the OHF funding process.

But Kahn and her supporters, including Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, seem to have never warmed to the council idea.

Hansen, in fact, has attempted to disband it — as he has the Clean Water Council. And Kahn prepared an amendment to her Legacy bill this session that would have increased the council's membership to 17, while flip-flopping its balance of power, 10 legislators to seven citizens.

The amendment was never offered.

Among powerful metro interests aiding Kahn on Legacy at the Capitol is longtime Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board lobbyist and attorney Brian Rice.

Last year, Rice and his law firm were paid $646,694 for lobbying and legal work by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, whose 2013 budget is about $94 million.

On Sunday, retired Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant said he spoke with Dayton at the recent unveiling of the new Vikings stadium, and that Dayton told him he would veto the House Legacy bill if it came to his desk.

Grant sent a letter to Dayton today, asking the governor to line-item veto the metro parks and invasive species funding.