Now we have the ranks of unelected bureaucrats, making their living off taxation, lining up to sell us more snake oil about the "investment" of more clean water spending.
John Linc Stine, MPCA commissioner, Ed Ehlinger, Minnesota Department of Health commissioner, and Jeff Freeman, executive director, Public Facilities Authority, tell us that Dayton's spending request is reasonable.
But, first, let me clear the air: I am sick to death of being taxed beyond my wishes and then fed the purulent line that it is an "investment."
The question people ought to be asking these bureaucrats is, "Where is/has all that money (taxes) gone?" You would be hard pressed to get a clear answer. Why? Because Legacy funding is difficult, if not impossible, to properly track and account for.
So-called Citizens Advisory Committees direct where funding goes. However, these "Citizen" boards are infested with people who have vested, if not outright conflicts of interest, deciding which projects obtain funds. One-third of Legacy funding goes to "Outdoor Heritage," not clean water. The biggest recipient of their grants is "Pheasants Forever." I have no beef with them, but they were founded by sportswriter Dennis Anderson, and he sits in the board that decides who gets funding. To top it off, P.F. uses the bulk of its grant dollars to buy land so it can never be developed. OK. But then they turn it over to the DNR. Now, the state owns the land, paid for with your tax dollars! And small cities and county boards wonder why their tax bases are drying up each year!
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And we haven't even touched the subject of "Arts" funding. Who/what defines "art?" Impossible to define, yet easy to see why urgent issues have been ignored by the spendaholics. What kind of "legacy" is that?
Tony Bauer
Nisswa
