my name's mark colvin i'm a senior vice president platinum bank here in town also a very longtime oakdale business and professional association board member and i really want to thank you all for coming this has become one of our staple events and we're really excited about today because we completely changed the format for this year we used to for those that remember have about eight or nine people sitting at a table in front of us everywhere from school board county board city council mayor and our state elected officials it's got to be where questions for one was not necessarily a question the other would care to answer the answer ask a question of our senators was not maybe the same question that our county sheriff would want to hear so with this time we decided to change the format to do it every other year type theme in which this this panel would be our state elected and we are balanced with two republicans and two democrats next year these four or whoever are in office at the time will not be here it will be our county sheriff our county board our city council and so will have a chance to focus locally kind of on an every other year basis so i do again want to welcome you it is a fun day we got a lot of good questions there are forms on the table to ask the question we do a little bit of screening and let me tell you why we've made a history here of making sure there's zero personal attacks and the whole questions of personal character so those kind of questions are left out we don't want to talk about scandals that don't involve anybody directly and we're very thankful that the four sitting here were involved in none of that so there will be no questions surrounding anything scandalous that is we will come around to collect them if you have any questions you want to ask we may or may not get to them all we had quite a few come in ahead of time as well so we've got a pretty decent size in front of me already but i also want to do a couple things there's some advance for the o b p a i want to make sure everybody knows about tomorrow's a golf tournament right here back at oak marsh we love anybody that wants to attend to come that would be great to see you next week a week from today is our community picnic we have a thousand people show up to that event that's at the oakdale fire station number one i believe it's fifty five fifty five hadley had some like that it's on the north and the north and fire station please call the leaven to one that day and then we can forget summer fast a couple weeks out before i get going though i want to take one moment to recognize somebody in our audience here today and we have a seven term house member that's retiring that's here with us today and that's represent of north florida and your you've served oakdale for a long time you've done a great job and we want to just want to make sure i say thank you for your serv that one of the things we also pride ourselves at this is this is just that this is not meant to be a candidate forum it's not meant to be a reelection stump so only elected officials will sit at our table and that  continue to be true for knock on wood as long as we hold this event so with that in order to avoid as senator wicker said twenty minute introductions by each of them i'm going to take some time to do just a quick intro of all four and i decided as far as how to determine who goes first we're going to go in order of seniority and as everybody knows are our two republicans that are sitting here this is their first term that is not the case for our two democrats so the most senior member up here is our senator chuck moderate he is a vocal proponent of universal health care but is also signed a taxpayer protection pledge where was elected at twenty one to the north st paul mayport oakdale school district board of education in the mid one nine hundred eighty s former d f l governor rudy purports twice appointed him to the metropolitan council he has served as the director of the st paul or a chamber of commerce and as a lobbyist for an assistant director of legislative affairs and associate c e o of the minnesota medical association senator wicker now works in the legal department of secure and financial downtown s paul which also happens to employ fellow attorney and district forty one g o p state senator jeff michael net said good is that a good buy is a jeff michelle sorry got the name wrong it's bad next is our d representative leon lilly leon is on the committee of state government finance commerce and regulatory reform rules and legislative administration this is his fourth elected term first elected in two thousand and four the l family covers both sides of the political fence as we can see leon the d f l or is in his fourth term in the house and his older brother ted also sitting up here is a republican first elected to the senate in two thousand and ten the public affairs oriented brothers grew up in a family that ran lilly newspapers a chain a weekly papers founded by their grandfather in one nine hundred thirty eight ted still operates a family business in north st paul wiley and now works as a big handler at delta airlines as vice chairman of commerce and labor and that last  maintain a business friendly environment in the state though republicans in the new majority say minnesota is still overregulated i like that line so i had to include that next would be our senator ted lilly from district fifty six senate was born in a series of conversations with friends and neighbors about what they saw going on in their city state and country there was a concern about the impact government was having on families community and economy quote unquote from his perch as vice chair of jobs and economic growth committee is representative cathy loam or she represents district fifty six a she serves on health and human services finance health and human services reform state government finance and veteran and services division this again has her first term also elected first in two thousand and two years after making a failed run to unseat rep julie bonn in suburban house district fifty six a kathy loam reporter self back on the ballot for one more try and found the political climate more to her liking running on a socially and fiscally conservative message the first term the first item on lowers agenda based on what resonate with voters during the campaign she said will be to work at scaling back government a native of hastings lumber joked that her career is historically been that of professional mother she homeschooled her four sons for twelve years the eldest was born bifida and had over seventy surgeries which is one reason lower eventually decided to stay at home from work when she was when he was about three years old before that she was a certified medical assistant after having attended one on a state university so there were plenty of opportunities for any of these four to augment that but i wanted to make it quick and concise so we could get into the questions and our first question we are going to start with representative law and what we're going to do is try to hit it so we're all for most of these questions are geared for all four candidates but starting with in this is this all of you are up for election this year as a result of redistricting what will be your top priority if reelected and i only want one item from each of you starting with representative lower thank you mark and thank you everybody for being here this morning and for having us great that i get to be first so i don't have any time to think but top priority i guess it would be the same as it has been you know just working on limiting the size and scope of government i think that people see that government is just getting too large and too as somebody already mentioned here too many regulations too many things that get in the way of folks and so that would be my top priority stadium build a stadium so now that i've done that i feel quite safe here so my the way i like to do business as a legislator if you will is to talk to the local leaders you folks here the city councils the school boards and find out what your priorities are and so that's what i've done the last couple years i plan to do the same thing as as we go forward i'll sit down and after  work with the local folks and find out what they want what their priorities are and i've always found that's a good place to start and i plan to do the same and i just want to throw on one thing real quick here with norah slavica she did a great job with oakdale and  i hope i can do as well as she's done for the city of folk tale and the area so thank you for your service to the state and congratulations on your new  job meant on the background i served on the school board for several terms and as the chair of the school board and as a product of the school district as well as my five children as my parents were very proud of this area and recognize that the schools provide the opportunity for hope for everyone and that is where you are going to be trained as you know for jobs so education starting in early childhood programs which represents la championed our k twelve system i'll mention that i work this session to increase educational opportunities so that we can have students in tenth grade participating in the post secondary education options program helping people reach their potential especially for students that need that extra challenge and it also helps in college affordability but tying that in with education as well your post secondary success is crucial as you launch then ultimately to the job market preparing people for jobs and the key to that is through a great educational system and that is my number one priority thank you mark thank you will be hosting this event you to those of you who have come out this morning to listen to us and to those who are watching on t v thank you for for being there and paying attention to what's happening in our government what is a top priority for me this session do going forward  it's basically what i'd like to say is that when when we were elected to office we come to you and ask for your trust we ask you to trust us with your vote or your proxies for what you feel is important in the legislature no reasonable people can come to different decisions about how to get things done but ultimately what i hear at the doors when i talk to people is that we're still concerned about jobs we're still concerned about the economy we're concerned about the youth in our economy in our in our families that are not able to find positions they have college debt they have student loan debt and they're not able to find work we need to find a way to help the businesses to help the job creators in this state grow more positions so that we can put more people back to work in grow the economy and help our families succeed in this environment thank you leon is going to start with the next one and i'm going to right into the topic is stadium two years ago was almost universal and i think everybody here remembers that that both republicans and democrats alike did not support funding stadiums now this past sachin both sides came together along with our governor to pass a stadium bill our panel was split exactly split our two republicans sitting in front of you voted no for the stadium and our two democrats voted yes so what i'm looking for easy to do starting with leon is to say why you supported it and what was the reasons you feel that was important or converse lee why did you not support it and why you felt it was important to vote no as mark introduced me in the introduction i grew up working with ted at the newspaper and so one of my favorite things i'd love to do in this world is follow media i just love to follow the media and if you watch the media what do they care about this y pretty much one thing this viking stadium and that's been going on for the last ten years but i quite honestly say i was very involved with the stadium and i'm quite proud of the work that we did in a bipartisan way senator rosen it was fantastic to work with representative mori landing was incredible and we had a good team of people in the house and the senate and we worked on that for the last two years on the viking stadium and is it a perfect money and but the bill is complicated it's a lot like making sausage you know the process that goes on at the capitol but i'm i'm pretty proud of the work that we did on the stadium the governor was fantastic i thought he was a great leader and it was said by the center rosen and landing the same thing i mean amazing team and we've been working on it for two years and you know there's a lot of republicans that didn't want to do it i get it there's a lot quite honestly there's a lot of dems don't want to do it either because you know you're so you know for a lot of the same reasons and then the gambling component is not always popular but i'm excited it's off the books it's we're going to have football in the state of minnesota i don't know but you know  politicians we're all going to go knocking on doors in this fall i'm telling you i don't want to knock at noon on a on a sunday and you know you'd be in you know do they want to go hi i'm leon lonely and are like the games on what are you doing you know get lost so i mean that's the reality and that's that's what i see in my community you know they don't like it that you know dizzy will factor you know you get a billionaire you're supporting it but you know it's part of our quality of life in minnesota do you do they come here do business leaders come here stay here you know we have great parks lakes education that center we are talked about we have an amazing state and so many things but it isn't our weather and  part of the factor is these parks and having great theaters in minneapolis and st paul and around and have and a great sports so i'm glad it's off the books i'm proud of the work and i'm going to stand tall on  what i'll go next and yes i did not vote for the stadium first of all to start out by saying i have a husband and four sons who absolutely love the vikings and i like the vikings too and i really think it's important to have them in minnesota however i just did not feel that the bill that was in front of us was the right thing and i actually don't feel philosophically like it's the right thing for us in state government to be supporting sports stadiums and teams and in entertainment in general i don't see that as a proper role of government you know there were a lot of things that the bill started out one way went to conference committee seem to get even worse when it was there and worse for the people of minnesota i would say  you know naming rights and things like that that will never really are not even naming rights and things that the team will be making money and will never really know what those profits are from that and you know i do serve on health and human services as mark said and you know we're doing cuts to the needy and the disabled and it just does not feel right to me to be giving state money and we're using an untested  gaming the electronic pull tabs have never really been successful anywhere in the country but yet we're going to use that as the funding mechanism and if that money doesn't come in the money definitely it's going out of the general fund to pay for this so it just did not feel like the right thing to me and i think that the vikings would have stayed i think we could have taken a little bit more time and figured out a better way so that was why voted no as you pointed out will return years this debate has continued people said let's figure it out resolve it don't punt figure it out people for or against it let's resolve it let's have some closure that's what we d me in a bipartisan way i voted for it because it's of viable form of entertainment it also has a significant economic impact by kings louis take twenty three million dollars out of our state budget annually in terms of what revenue that provides directly in addition to the thousands of jobs this side from whether you're a vikings fan this will create thirteen thousand jobs just in the construction and the residual impact on hospitality in other areas is significant i supported the i supported a number of options and ultimately the gambling provision because if you don't want to gamble don't it's available as an option and as  year it's voluntary you don't have to do it this is not a state tax on the people it's voluntary and that was a key part of the out equation and disruption of moamar said there's a part of this is untested but then there's a fall back not on the general fund the tax payers but there's a fallback trigger that would go to an additional surcharge i believe on the luxury boxes and some other items but that was a very important part that we have raised so for those reasons way support it for jobs let's get it done i did not support the final bill and i'll tell you why when i when i came to rooms like this roomful of people throughout the last two years i would ask for a show of hands how many of you want the vikings to stay in minnesota and invariably all hands would go up in the room and then i would ask the question how many of you want to help pay for that and invariably one or two or three hands would go up in the room and this bill  is a bill that limit let me go into the process that we went through with this bill it had incredible amount of testimony of hearings in multiple committees in both the house in the senate as leon represent said they've been working on this for a number of years and there were a lot of conversations about this stadium but one of the frustrations in those hearings is that six times we had what's called a delete  all so the bill was presented to us in this bill who was anywhere from seventy to ninety pages and i would read that bill over night so that i was prepared for the committee meeting the next morning when i got to the meeting that that morning there was a delete all presented so the whole bill was set aside and a new bill was presented and that happened in the first committee that we were in and then there were some amendments made to it there were some improvements made to it but zygi wilf and the vikings were not supportive of those changes that were made so there was a delete that brought it back to the original format and six times it was brought back to the bill that the vikings wanted there was a form of the bill that i supported that i voted for and that involves fees having those who are engaged in the vikings who support the  vikings who participate in the vikings the naming rights the sweet purchasers those who buy jerseys and things like that and a number of us i believe voted for that version of the bill but but that bill i supported because i felt that those who are who are participating in the stadium should be the ones that pay for it but inevitably inevitably that passed in the senate it actually passed but through some political gerrymandering they took a short break in the senate some lobbyist talk to folks in the senate they change their votes and it came back basically as the as the bill that was there before and that was a bill that i could not support i'm very concerned that the method of paying for this is gambling a restaurant here we are at  oakdale and a restaurant such as steve your restaurant downstairs you could have fifty machines in this stablish mint and i just think that changes the culture of minnesota as we go forward fifty gambling machines in or in a restaurant this size and that is not something that i think we want as minnesotans so i was very concerned about the method of pain for this i was concerned about the method that the bill passed and i think that we as legislators have a responsibility to find a better solution for the vikings and that is why i did not support the bill that did end up passing thank you thank you all our next question will start with senator wicker and this is a dovetail of the bill of the question before but this one revolves around s paul and that is the stadium bill was significant had significant dollars earmarked for target center those dollars are said to give a significant competitive advantage necessary and sig necessary upgrades to that facility  there are many concerned that that puts government in play to make a again competitive advantage to target center over the xcel energy center in st paul so why was this money included do you perceive this is a problem for st paul and does this indeed create create a bit of regional imbalance and unfair competition when it comes to venues that those arenas try to get there is clearly competition between st paul minneapolis and infrastructure would have been there i had tried to get the stadium right by the by sears and there's a twenty acres there it would up aligned with the light rail coming in with the highway interstate infrastructure but the city officials weren't interested and so that pretty much open the door for avenue in evitable going to minneapolis because of some other issues with arden hill so i wanted to let you know from that and i after not seen that it was going to be located in the st paul east metro area and after the great success we have demonstrated with excel and others i talked a great deal to the st paul area chamber of commerce and others just about the regional fairness of what's going on and and our lead in the senate on this issue was senator john herrington who recently announced he's not seeking reelection and he was the point person to make sure that for any benefit that's going to go for target which is in competition obviously with excel that there would be some reciprocity for the xcel center and in fact there was so you're correct that there is a great deal of competition there were provisions made otherwise there would not have been hardly any nice metro votes for the all commit resolution and one of the biggest competitors or one of the one of the biggest challenges that the target center in excel have is of is gaining those entertainers getting them to come for events at the different venues and one of the reasons that they choose excel over the target center actually is the tax difference in minneapolis there's a city tax there are taxes that are paid and when you have the earnings at some of these entertainers have that tax is much higher in minneapolis so yes the target center will be improved it will be changed but the xcel center is still a premier site in the in the minnesota venue in the minnesota area and because of that tax difference i believe that we still will continue to see great performances in s communities a lot of people don't know that this that this session was well past the vikings here the viking stadium bill obviously passed but there's also money in there that's going to fix the target center i toured target center i don't know if you really get you know many of you if you go to target to the bass ball games i'm a hockey guy so i try not to watch basketball if i can help it it's really a bad game ted played basketball so i'm just a little a little family repair that that explains a lot of things i think but no the target set or it really was a need in of a ton of work there was if you just think about the corner on first avenue and visualize what  paul's been able to do with the excel center and how that opens up on to the to seven corners there and so you're going to see the same thing and at target center it's going to open up and keep in mind the target center has a world championship team are only team the women's team that won so we also have the links that are doing well and so you've got that factor so i mean some of this is political too with the votes and whatnot but the target center is going to be fix the st paul there they're going to get their money stay tuned it's common there's about fifty five million dollars in bonding dollars and there's going to be some st paul saints are going to be taking you know go a long way to be in heaven there it's already kind of for things that are going on but clearly the xcel center is going to do just fine with the madonnas common and try to get your tickets good well i don't have very much to add on this at all and going back to my philosophy of just not thinking it's really necessarily a proper role of government to be involved in all of these boarding events and activities i'm just going to leave it at that thank you the next question i'm going to start with senator lilly and somewhat scientific here because senator lilly had a birdseye or front row seat to this event and this questions regarding the government shutdown senator lilly was one of several republicans that sat in negotiations with the governor and you know that's almost a year ago right now so what i'm looking for starting with senator lee but all for contributing is that what have we learned one year later  and the the shutdown happened because the governor believed that with the six billion dollar deficit that the state was facing and at the time of the shutdown it had been improved to about a five point two billion dollars deficit that the solution for that was to raise taxes on minnesotans and he would say that he was raising taxes on the wealthy but many of you in this room and in our t v audience have  escorts revenues from your business flows through to you personally and if that happens you could be considered part of that wealthy group that would be paying those taxes and our concern is that with the economy being as fragile as it is with the with the unemployment being as high as it was a year ago and two years ago that if we raise taxes what would happen to this economy what would happen to the job creators that are trying to grow jobs and trying to put us back to work and we believed that that was not the right answer at that time the governor wanted a four billion dollars tax increase on the citizens of minnesota and we believed that we could do this without raising taxes that we could balance a budget without raising taxes and as mark stated i was part of the negotiating team there were house members and senate members of the house of republican and democratic leadership and also the governor and we sat down and talked about things and we talked and we talked and i think the answer really was it worth it is is answered by what is happening in the economy today in the economy today the state of minnesota has a one point two billion dollars surplus coming from that five point two billion dollars deficit we did this with all raising taxes we did this by controlling the growth of spending in government and also in minnesota the unemployment rate at the time was as high as the national rate about nine percent and it's has come down to five point seven percent in minnesota and again that tells us that the job creators are creating jobs are growing the economy we're putting people back to work and i would say that the shutdown as distasteful as it was was something that was necessary at the same time i had a bill this year that i presented that basically looked at wisconsin i was at a meeting in wisconsin and governor walker was asked during the shutdown governor what do you think of minnesota shutdown and he said well this can never happen in wisconsin because we have a law that if the if there is a disagreement between the governor in the legislature funding continues at one hundred percent until there is a solution so i presented that bill this year we talked about that bill this year we were not able to get it passed through the senate  that is something that i think is important could the shutdown happen again and yes it could and i'm very concerned about the impact in the future of that happening i think it was important to go through the process last time but i do think that we as legislators need to find a way to make sure that that does not happen in the future i believe that the shutdown last year was very regrettable and i hope we never see it again i voted against the so called resolution where we had to take additional money from schools in terms of you know borrowing from the classroom for the payback we also had to raid the tobacco settlement fund where a number of people in a bipartisan way said this is not a responsible way to balance the budget then some call that kicking the can and so you know structurally we are not in balance and we need to address that next session i and i know many of us were very frustrated that an agreement could not be reached it's up to ultimately a group of people to try to resolve it and there were some sharp partisan differences unfortunately had i  involved directly in you know those two hundred one but ultimately there's a few people that are representatives for the parties but i probably what i have suggested was standing room don't come out until you figure it out  referendum it failed for a new school at north and we had lost over one hundred people moving just voting with their feet going to another community and we said what are we going to do we had people poor white polarized on these issues just like here we stayed in a room and remember we met the entire night through the morning with some of the different people involved and it style to try to reach a consensus and what we did alternately was come up with a proposal that called for the new skyview and the north we brought the communities together with a lot of give and take and the formula that we did and came out shaking hands and but that was a process where i was directly involved and in fact in a leadership position to make it happen and i had suggested a process like that during the last during that shutdown which i found so stressful so distasteful to see in our state parks closed etc that was embarrassing but there were some very strong egos and others involved in terms of defending it and rather than do blame game that happened and it must be avoided in the future i did support a number of proposals that would have lights on with a lot of different things you know hope that it never happens again ok well i would agree with a lot of things that have been said already it was as a freshman it was very discouraging and disheartening to come in and work hard and get our bills passed and presented and then have  governor not for whatever reason we couldn't get it figured out so there were a lot of concerns in our area especially the stillwater lift bridge was definitely a concern and i was very grateful that the governor at one point he had come into our caucus and talked to us and he gave us his personal cell phone and said if you ever have anything that you want to talk about call me and so i took that opportunity and i called him on his cell phone and i did talk about it because to keep the still water lift bridge up was a safety security issue and it really would not have been a good thing and so i was very thankful that we were able to resolve that but there were a lot of things that were very difficult for people during that shutdown and it was it was very  disheartening and so i also had the companion bill to that senator talked about with making sure this would never happen again by having something in legislation that said if we can't come to an agreement we can't play politics here with people and we'll make sure that we have the government just operating at the budget that we have currently in place so that was disappointing that we didn't get that down i was door knocking yesterday and i am ended up at a home in grant where gentleman works for the d o t and he's working on the new still water river crossing and he's very concerned that we could have another shutdown and what that would do to that project which is starting you know they're doing a lot of testing and things like that right now and they want to keep moving forward and if we want to keep the cost containment on the still water bridge we need to make sure that they can keep moving forward without in the east stopping so i agree with my colleagues here i hope we never see that again think i think i'm going to turn up the heat a little bit on this you know i think what we have is we had kind of a trend in the last election that we brought a lot of folks to st paul to the capitol that did not worked with  like mark when it was on the school board or not were you know they hadn't worked with local folks and seen the value of government they hadn't seen the hard work that craig waldron and other people have done for years they don't they don't you know they don't know hundred six this place was built in the you know the council did you know what they did to acquire land and to work with the business people and to to build a place like this they don't you know they come and office and they see a lot of waste they think they don't realize how many good people are showing up every day doing good work and showing great pride for the folks so what happens is you have this philosophy and and i think it's it's really unfortunate because you get in a situation that you just all you think you have these and we have them on our side too we have the little party platforms so you have a party farm on one side that says i'm not going to spend many many more i'm not go know i'm going to eliminate waste going to get rid of all every rule you know so you go there to st paul and you do this and you're rigid but that isn't how politics works you know and that's what you kind of learn from being in office for a while i mean should people be in politics forever perhaps not but one of the things that you learn turn is that there's a lot of people that are doing good work showing up every day and yeah it's just i work for delta airlines is there some employees that maybe should move on and do something else darn right there is i bet this gentleman at three am might have seen a couple people that might a you know maybe if probably been better employed somewhere else but there's a lot of people that work hard at the state what happened is we had a situation where people want compromise on both sides so there we are twenty one days think about it shut down the government for twenty one days can you shut down your businesses for twenty one days can you i mean it was it was really unfortunate we're all we're all tied in that's why the legislature's approval rating i mean it's a little worse for these guys but ours is in ours is like thirty one percent think about it when i ran for office i was going to run for a do a job that i'm going to get a thirty percent approval rating by the state it's embarrassing there's this twenty one percent kind of tied to the days off of the government but you know it's just it's not good so what happens is they want us to go down there and kind of like senator we are said in a room are these bills perfect no they're not the vikings bill there was a lot of stuff in there that i just quite honestly didn't like i don't get to make all there's one hundred thirty four members of the house sixty seven senators one governor you know we don't live in a kingdom so i don't get to say this is how the bill's going to look so you sometimes you vote on stuff that you don't like and so compromise i think is important it's a value in elected officials you've got a it's not the value to go down and say i'm going to do this that's easy i can do that i'm not going to do this i'm not you know compromise is hard it's it's hard and it's the right thing so i think that's what's happened i hope we've all learned from it and that it doesn't happen again so you can keep the my coming to a follow up by you know the questions that i'm reading from have either been submitted by or b p a members over the last four weeks some have come here today some to do what i can to weave in some so you might hear little bits and pieces of your questions mixed in with others doing the best we can to get just about all of the men and follow up to this question about the state shutdown is obviously taxes i think everybody hit about it's a revenue expenditure thing and one of the questions that came from the audience here as a quick follow up we could try to keep these responses to a minute and that is about commercial property taxes this individual said their property taxes went up forty thousand dollars annually amidst all of this and that's over twenty five percent increase and i think the heart of the question is not only how is this used and determined but  in a time where there is you know this balance it is that is that type of increase justified in a market in which values are not rising in that same proportion well i don't know the exact specifics but i can tell you that last tax bill that was supposed to be the big savior of all job creators in the state of minnesota i did a little homework i don't usually and i add that i asked for a piece of paper but i did ask for four businesses i asked for the impact on your local businesses and one of them is yours so i went to for a long liquors and i said what would what would have been the impact of that major job creating tax bill what would have been you know what terry for a long what i got an extra one hundred twelve dollars i think you would have created a job with that how about dr tim over there do you know what your numbers are two hundred and sixty three dollars he would have saved that major effort of saving all but you know it's those are the real numbers we've we're leaving a budget you know we didn't solve anything we've got a budget you know we're all going to go into office we've got a four billion dollar problem waiting we just kicked it it's down there and it's coming fast four billion dollars yes if the economy improves that number might change but right now i'd like to say have one person say it's not four billion dollars it's around the corner because it is it had like the truth jack on t know how they do that they do the little thing and it says you know they rated if it was a true fact or not but this one passed one hundred percent four billion dollars it's common so i mean i feel for it i value what you guys do is as job  and but keep in mind that i mean she mentioned health care i don't know you know these are really tricky times there isn't all the slush funds we've taken the easy money both the republicans did it and we did it too when we were in control we took the easy pots of money that were sitting around so we've done the easy stuff now it's the hard stuff so i don't have a total answer i don't see taxes screaming down the pike getting lower quite honestly we have an aging population the shift to we're talking about this this morning we have we have quite a few challenges our population demographically is changing we have a lot of challenges  that quite honestly might cost us a little bit more money so these are not always easy things and yes we're what i like to tell you look in the face and say i want to i do want to lower your taxes do i want to raise taxes government ultimately i think the question is what is the role of government and what is the role of our public to support that government what is the level of government that we can support as citizens how do we how do we provide the services that we need to as a government and what is the proper role what is that level i think that the property taxes that we pay are too high but many of those we have to remember that many of those choices of property taxes are decided on a local level now we are blessed in oakdale we are blessed with a city council a mayor that works very hard to hold your taxes in line we are blessed with a county that has the second lowest tax rate in the state of minnesota and we are blessed with a school district that is working hard to be fiscally responsible but that being said our taxes are increasing our taxes are continuing to increase and we as public officials have to find ways to control the growth of government we have to find ways to control the growth of that spending because that does impact you and even if it is five hundred dollars to a bank or two hundred dollars to the local liquor store those are important dollars those are important dollars as obama was working on certain things he was talking about it's only thirty dollars more that we that we need to spend well this is two hundred dollars five hundred dollars and these things add up these are important now this this year the legislature did propose a a phasing out in commercial real estate tax many of many of the folks in this room know but perhaps the t v audience doesn't but the commercial real estate holders pay two forms of tax to real estate tax the state of minnesota they pay their regular tax and then they pay a state wide tax and one of the things that we tried to do this year was to phase out that state wide tax over the next ten years not in one year we tried to find a very reasonable way to phase this out over a longer period of time but to phase that out because we do not feel that the job creators in minnesota should be pain both of those taxes and that was vetoed the governor vetoed that there also was a tax bill that did have tax savings for commercial properties and and that bill was vetoed so we have been working on this there was about thirty million dollars in savings for the for the commercial properties that was passed was and the governor signed this year so we did provide some relief but there is more that needs to be done and we need to do this for the job creators in the state of minnesota i agree  did with four other senate democrats support the tax bill and those other democrats were senator medicines bought off stump and rest and there were a number of provisions that i thought in balance justified doing it as the reps represent of the least said earlier sometimes there's going to be items in a big bill that you might object to but because of that impact on property taxes i did support it and so i do agree i also supported that tax package because it included a provision that the represents loic and i had worked on for tax increment financing for jobs in oakdale and we share your vision for so we will work on that by the way on that tax equity financing and short term plans continue and that will be priority one to get that and hopefully it won't get caught up in some of the other more controversial proposals  thank you well i guess i just want to start out by saying the bill that we passed in the house i know representative dave is david's head of the tax committee kept calling it a smoke and smoke and bill and it was a very good bill for businesses and it was very discouraging to to see that vetoed not once not twice but i think three times so you know i just i kind of want to just hit a little bit on what senator senator excuse me representative lilly had to say about you know the freshman coming in and i think that it kind of relates in the fact that you know people elected group of thirty three republicans this year because our message at the door was that we wanted to get a handle on the taxes and that really resonated with people so i think that was very important i know some very good friends from woodbury who moved to tennessee last year because they could no longer do their small business here in the state of minnesota and so i think you know i just want to keep it to a minute here but i think that texas is a very important thing that we need to get control of and i do want to say to that washington county i went to their truth and taxation meeting to see people's reactions to that and commissioner kriesel actually praised us for the work that we did and said that it was really we have a very complicated system and that he was very thankful for the work that we did on that so thank you next question little bit of dovetails into where the answers came on this table and this one we will be starting with representative lowey and this one's on the on the topic of gridlock and bipartisanship and we just heard there is a little bit of that and while she's not on the panel here today to start this question off i want to take a quick excerpt from representative slow x two thousand and twelve session wrap up because i think it explains gridlock very well and this is directly from north  you get it you get to be included here today and it goes like this the two thousand and twelve legislative session adjourned in mid may bringing an end to the potentially most frustrating biennium in my time at the legislature the viking stadium debate stole the attention near the end of the session but it's important to focus on the big picture our state is facing tremendous challenges and unfortunately our state leaves the bayani in the same way we entered it with massive debt and deficits an economy that's recovering too slowly skyrocketing property taxes struggling schools and a shrink ing middle class in addition to that i'm deeply concerned about the gridlock in misplaced priorities that gripped the capital these last two years last year an unwillingness to compromise led to the longest government shutdown in state history the final budget which i did not support amounts from our school children eliminated the homestead tax credit and for the first time ever engaged our state in watching style deficit spending through the use of tobacco bonds this session the legislature was again distracted by misplaced priorities rather than helping middle class minnesotans that's just a part of that commentary but the question then is in a kind of mix a couple what good not ok you can pass the mike now i'm just kidding what do you think of this is a question from the audience mixed in with the question we had is what do you think is needed to help bring more product to vittie in collaboration to the culture of the capitol some people are leaving the capitol due to the stress and is this any different than in years past and for the republicans on the panel like you to answer some what would this be your opinion if you were in the same position that the democrats are today it is swapped over two years ago it went from majority senate majority house to now minority senate minority house and is that part of that transaction or is there is there more to this as as represent of slow work indicated and as representative lowey obviously talked about here just before what you know earlier i mentioned my interest in the media and i think that the media is somewhat guilty of making a firing some of the combat if you will but if you were to come with me in the in if you're welcome to come with any of us i'm sure and come on a tour and visit down there you'd be surprised you'd see two people if you will or a whole group of people fighting against each other on the house floor for example and then you go into retiring room and you'd see  'm talking eating lunch together asking you know joking around how's your kid you know that sort of thing or watching the hockey tournament on t v here so i think you'd be surprised that  actually do get along to a degree but i i been this my fourth term and i can honestly say i just i don't feel like it's as much fun and i know we're not going down there to have fun i get it you know we're sent down there to do work but the work can be done in a place that people can differ but do it respectfully and there's a couple things that happen john marty had a law that you know the gift ban and i personally think that you know we can't break bread together and kind of get to know each other better in a better way but i i'm really concerned senator harrington said that he's leaving for some of those reasons time europe of ian has been there for a long time and you also hear the same thing from many retiring republican members that it's the place is not healthy and so you've got to realize that our the people that create our constitution minnesota created this great vision the legislature it's a fantastic building but also the work that we need to do down there we need to figure out how to work well and do it in a positive way because ultimately all and i have no doubt that all these people up here love minnesota so we've got to figure out how to do that yeah it's a really good question and we hear this a lot and i even hear it at the doors and now and i guess a couple things i would say you know i am there because i want to do the right thing for the people of minnesota and i'm i'm sure that every one of us sitting up here and  the same way we all wanted to do want to do excuse me the right thing for the people of minnesota i think the problem comes in is that we do have two parties and we do have party platforms and we do tend to be in those parties because we believe in the platforms to a degree and so well to a large degree so one party platform is more about limited government and spending within your means and less taxes and one and just more freedom for the individual and one party platform is more about you know government is the answer maybe the solution to things and growing government more and having more programs and so sometimes i think it's just kind of hard to meet in the middle of those t diverse things you know i just as an example i had an autism housing bill that i put forth this year and it passed bipartisan lee in the senate and the house and committees the testimony was very compelling i had a meeting with the governor about that bill and he because in the state of minnesota there's only four bedroom group homes allowed for individuals in the situation that i was working and that's not really the right solution for some of these severely severely autistic people so i met with the governor he happens to have a nephew who has severe autism who lives in pennsylvania who has had a very good experience in one of these campus type housing and he was very  much interested in my topic and asked me to come back the next day and when i got back there it wasn't that the commissioner was not in favor of it so you know those kinds of things i mean we just i like to see us working for the people and for the needs but somehow it seems like we do end up in gridlock for for whatever reason so i just think that we do want to be there for the people and that is our role and that's what i'm there for both the comments we need to stay focused on people issues challenges and not personalities i am not a one issue person or my way or the highway i came in with several terms of experience as a local official as did the reps lillee and that's what we had to do at the local level to resolve differences  crossed party lines on issues i mentioned the tax bill i have had assistance from from others and i want to give one example which was very very special this session and maybe it was during the bonding bill i serve also on the bonding committee which ultimately half a billion dollars went out for various projects for our schools higher education d n r etc but one item that was not included but i proposed on the senate floor and pretty much to rule it out point we're going to deal with a half a billion dollars that's a lot of money but can we add capacity actually for seven hundred twenty but no  t for the people who work so hard and represents always everyone here is a supporter of it but like many of the projects it didn't get in the bill i said what can i do and so i called the director and i didn't think we'd have the votes i gave the respectful speech and expected to hear well that's good next year but when we put up a roll call vote there were three republicans that crossed over centered john how loving and it passed by one vote that is bipartisanship and that's working together and while there may not been a lot of fanfare about that that is very very special for the people that are at tubman for the the people that they serve in their mission and so i want you to know we do work on a number of issues and tyler's law you know work we could go through it but it's usually not the headline grabber we need to work together respect one another and finally we have one item that we do with the beginning of the session that's called one minnesota which we are and it's usually out at the university of minnesota at the humphrey and the carlson schools and go back and forth we hear speakers from business various sectors we talk about the challenges and we're all together informally and i wish we could do that for even more than one day maybe for a week and then get into some breakout sessions and talk about follow up and one other item i mean i did this when i was chair of the committee when we were in the majority for the i chaired education for my subcommittees literacy early childhood etc i had bipartisan chairs and so it would be a republican and a democrat that would co chair and provide some ownership going in so that by the time we develop things we pretty much had built consensus and that comes by that shared type of power th chuck you know it's interesting we talk sometimes about term limits in the legislature and in the last election two thousand and ten there were twenty four new senators out of sixty seven twenty four new out of sixty seven this year twenty what is it forty seven out of two hundred and one are not seeking re election so there is there is great turnover in the legislature and we are blessed in minnesota because we have very gifted people who serve us they are very passionate both what they believe in on both sides the they are very strongly believe you know that they have just these core beliefs and what they stand for and and our goal our responsibility is to go to the legislature and work hard fight for what we believe in our goal is to contrast with each other our responsibility is to do that but in the end to come out with good legislation and that's what that's what our goal needs to be and there's a there's a challenge because in the media we're not going to hear people getting along that doesn't make news that that's not newsworthy what's newsworthy is when there's confrontation when there's difference when there's distinction between different people that's newsworthy so that's what we read about that's what we hear about that's we see on t v but there are times that we can work together and there are people on the other side of the aisle that i trust and that i work with and senator wicker is one of those that i work with very closely we have both years on this and i am blessed because of leon because of my brother that he has a lot of people that he's worked with in the democrat side that i've had as friends and colleagues for many years so i've had a relationship my role in the chamber  bill business association in the past i have learned that you have to be able to work with people on both sides of the aisle to get things done that is how we have to accomplish things we have to be willing to do that but at the same time that does not mean you give up on your principles we are sent there to stand for the principles that you have a for us for and that's what we need to continue to do in because of that there is some some distinction between us but in the end there is politics and there's policy and i think there are times that we can make agreements on what is good for local economy for local people and find a way to work together on things and i think you have seen that from all four of us that are up here and from represent a small work in the past and i think that's something you continue to see where we are and i can tell you i've got far more questions up here than will be able to ask in the next ten minutes i'm going to try to best i can to weed through the ones to keep the topics as broad as we can but part common to bipartisanship the only bill i had any reference to this year was the banking bill professionally i do deal with that senator lilly helped author put that bill i believe passed the senate sixty seven zero correct so there are bills that while you i think they all hit it on they had in mind in the house the same i don't know i don't remember the house vote was but yeah it's so i mean there are some bright spots i appreciate the candor but in light of how little time we have left we really and i know this is going to be tough for  for at least three of the four kathy seems to be really concise i like that thank you kathy but if we could try to keep the answer starts i want to try to get as many of these questions in and this one is going to start with senator lilly and this is on the topic  constitutional amendments and specifically right now the republicans have put forth a few measures for constitutional amendment this fall specifically i want to talk about here at least this question this e mail question came in saying specific pacifically as it surrounds the issue of gay marriage if the voters speak and shoot down the amendment will you as republicans support the will of the voters and not try to further legislate the issue for the two democrats if passed will you support the amended constitution all you thank you for that question yes there are two amendments that will be on the ballot this year one of those is the voter id ballot photo id and actually there's a court challenge on that and you can expect to hear more about that as time goes forward  but i would believe on that one that it's important for us to show an id we show an id for virtually everything we do in life and i think voting is an important right and i do believe that we need to show an id at the it's not that difficult to do but i think that's important on the marriage amendment that was an important thing for us to do now i'd like to offer just a little bit of history on this this is already a law in the state of minnesota so prior legislatures that have been led by democrats and republicans have put this into law it is a statute existing on the books today and what we're looking for is in this constitutional amendment is we're looking to give you the right to vote on this important issue you should have the right to do this i am very concerned that two hundred one legislators one governor that a small court that a few people can make a decision that is so important that is so crucial to your lives and i don't believe that that's something that we should continue to do in the legislature and that is why i felt it was so important to have it on the ballot this this election and yes i do want to hear what the people of minnesota have to say on this i think that's exactly the reason that we're doing this  you i think this is an example of the failure that we've talked about earlier is that it is take your balls and go home so they can come up with a compromise so they throw stuff on the on the ballot that's the reality is it legal is it by the you know that polls polls about ninety nine percent so we thought well put that on the ballot do we do it no i don't think that's what people when they elected us they want us to vote on our make decisions and come up with and i'm saying it's not legal in this marriage things personal for me i have someone in my life that i love dearly that is gay i love or and i don't i don't think it should have been put on the ballot i think that history is going to prove over time that this is a low spot in history in our country in our state and i think it's better for business we've had some big business leaders come out and say to be more inclusive is assett it's helps bring strong talent to minnesota again i go back to the principle it's not our weather that brings people it's inclusiveness it's the arts community in sports it's having a good education system that you want to raise your kids in and those sort of things so i have someone i love in my life that i care about that has a different lifestyle that my wife and i and i'd be very disappointed if they couldn't have the same opportunities that my wife and i have had for the last twenty four years so that's just my i know that's not the most popular answer probably poles you know but that's what i believe well i'll just start out by answering the question absolutely whatever the people decide is what i'll support and i just think that as senator lilly said it is important for the people to have a voice on these very important things rather than just two hundred  legislators and the governor making these decisions now in thirty one states the marriage amendment has been on the ballot and it has passed and i know in polling and we all do our own polling in our districts that it was an issue that people wanted to have a voice in so i think that we have done the will in the piece of the people by giving them a voice on the ballot and photo voter id same way that pulled it over eighty percent people want integrity in their elections they don't think it's unreasonable to show an id in fact i was an election judge for fifteen years before i ran for this office and i can't tell you how many people would walk up to me with their driver's license to show me who they were and it wasn't necessary but they wanted to do it so i think that these are important questions and people want to have one to be able to weigh in and so i think it's good that we have them on the ballot the proposed amendments our focus as lawmakers and as minnesota should be on jobs on education on our environment parks and trails the great quality of life that we have here  does not need to focus on these two items i did not receive a great deal of calls i realize how they pull etc but ultimately we vote on what we think is right and on  public is divided let them decide we are obligated to a poll that is you know the california supreme appellate decision is now going to go to the u s supreme court seventeen states have recognized some form i don't think which has as  deteriorated but let the people decide that's my opinion and i've heard from many people of base that feel strongly on both sides and that goes for the voter id by the way oral arguments i think in the supreme court minnesota supreme court of the july seventeen or so the league of women voters and many other groups have said sure if you have the id but what is the abuse what's the problem that you're addressing i've asked county attorneys and others how many prosecutions people in the faith communities that have said you know what does this have to do with the real pressing for years state so that's how i feel on those ultimately of course i have to respect whatever borders the next question as we are getting close to the end i'm going to look for just a yes or no on a on this one it originally had discussed but i don't think we can and that is in regards to the wisconsin recall it doesn't affect minnesota but the question that came in was that there was a recall to the neighbors are east based upon ideological differences while it's not legal in minnesota should it be allowed to happen over ideological differences maybe just a yes or no or ten ideological issues and i think i'm guessing i'm going to read it a little bit versus issues of criminal intent or fraud i guess i'll just say i don't think we should have recalls i think it's called elections and if you're not happy with your elected official then you don't vote for them the next time i agree wholeheartedly thank you next one this questions on governor dayton could all of you give him a letter grade of his performance so far and twenty seconds as to why a i think he gave himself an f on the federal level i think he's done a fantastic job we would not have a viking stadium and he showed great leadership in other areas and as been a nice balance to to some of what we're seeing end he actually has compromised on quite a few things and challenge to the other side to do the same and i think he's going to be even better ally and a better asset to the state in this next two years i keep guy by the way plot i'm very thankful that he has been a very strong supporter of still outerbridge and that's a very important issue in my district and he's very receptive when you want to talk to him  very thankful that he met with me but there's been some disappointments too and in the vetoing and so on so i give him an a he has recruited an outstanding cabinet and it is so important in the executive branch to attract top talent these persons that face confirmation in the senate and most of them have made it they have reached out they have put together a very ambitious agenda very focused on jobs and by the way just here locally you probably know that mark phillips will tell the spouse of superintendent patty phillips he's the commissioner for the department of employment economic development they are zealously working to increase job opportunities in our state and that has been his focus he wanted to get it done on the vikings the governor he wanted to put together a bonding bill to get people working again he has also been unpopular times with the l in terms of you know in terms of party platform on some of the initiatives to cut red tape in the environmental permitting process to streamline that and governor dayton did support those initiatives and you know he has taken some heat on that but he has done his best to reach out yes he did beat on some bills those will be worked on in the future but i commend the high talented he's recruited in the cabinet his focus on jobs and for speaking out on the issues he believes strongly and he's also a very hard worker i think my grade for governor dean would be is needs improvement i think that there are there  are areas that i've worked with him on personally in that i am very impressed with what he has done as representative lower mentioned the still water bridge the sacred river crossing honestly could not have happened without his leadership and i appreciate the partnership that he and i and lower and others have had he played a key role at significant parts and that was very important to us in these metro area at the same time eighty seven percent of the bills that he vetoed were bipartisan had democrat support had republican support eighty seven percent and he is a governor who believes that we need to increase taxes if we had followed through and had his four billion dollar tax increase i think that people would not be viewing him the way that they are currently and i think that he does need to show improvement in his work with with all people all part of all people in the legislature so it needs improvement and really one last when you are running out of time but i'll tell you we had a great question on unionization of daycare we've had great questions on the state tax we've had great questions on campaign contributions all these other things i wish i would have time to ask it but the one i want to ask is because i know again it's it i think it represents one of the other split votes exactly on party lines up here where our in this case the republicans all voted no and our democrats all voted yes and that's on the hunting and fishing fee hike increase and so since this is one that split i just be curious as to all your thoughts and you pick who  you pick who starts this one i don't leon why i was just up in duluth last night i was i'm pretty proud to say the speaker's ehlers who's a republican appointed me to be on the list committee so i've been able to do quite a bit of hunting and  fishing work this last year hunters are actually in favor of this tax increase so if you ask a hunter a fisherman it's a fascinating deal they're say please taxes please we want this we need this and they know that there's a need there and so i don't know that's that's why i supported it so i voted no basically because we spent sixty billion dollars a by any has a very large budget and i just was not in favor of voting for any increases of any kind interestingly enough i just got an e mail in the last few days from a woman whose son moved to michigan for a short time and came back and he's a fisherman and i don't really understand i'm not on the environment committee but his license was going to go up to one hundred seventy three dollars and she was outraged by that and i have representative mcnamara helping her figure that out but i just again i'm just not voting for tax increases at this point i think we need to get control of the money that we have i also voted no i didn't think it was justified on the fees and i also had concerns about some provisions on trapping  imposition of all these fees ordered no i also voted no on the fee increase for licenses and i believe that there is enough money we heard testimony that there's enough money in the d n r to support the  programs that they have very valuable important programs for hunting and fishing and trapping and everything else that we do in minnesota but there was enough money there and i did not believe that we needed results rates picked the wrong question to ask if i was wrong in my that i just want to mention very briefly one item that almost made it but didn't was thirty thousand dollars appropriation for the veterans memorial bill and many of you have been working on that and you're going to still get that memorial by the raffle that's going on for the harley and if you haven't purchased a harley raffle ticket it's available or for viewers please get one there we go again again we're blessed for a ton of good questions i wish we had another hour i don't still think we'd get through on but i want get thank everybody for attending i want to thank our t v audience for viewing and we will be back next year and please encourage your friends the more people i've come the more questions we can get the better we like it so again thank you all for attending and have a great