A Senate Subcommittee With Oversight Of Met Council, Other Metro Agencies Has No Plans To Meet This Session

By Ricardo Lopez, the Minnesota Reformer

January 28, 2021

The governance of the Metropolitan Council is typically one of the more contentious issues at the Legislature, where Republicans frequently seek to lessen its influence or take away the governor’s power to appoint its members.

But the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the Met Council and other local government agencies won’t meet this year, Chair David Osmek, R-Mound, told members this month.

The Senate local government policy subcommittee on metropolitan governance, which has jurisdiction over local government agencies like the Met Council, the Metropolitan Airports Commission and the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, has not met since was named chair in December.

“Until further notice, no committee meetings are scheduled or planned,” Osmek, a third-term senator who ran for governor in 2018, wrote in an email to the five-member committee on Jan. 5.

He confirmed those plans during the first meeting of the Senate transportation finance committee on Jan. 12 but gave no explanation why.

During introductions, Osmek said he belonged to a few committees, including “a subcommittee that shall rename nameless because they probably won’t meet,” he said with a sardonic smirk. “We all know (what) that is, Sen. (Julia) Coleman and Sen. (Scott) Dibble.”

Coleman, R-Chanhassan, and Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, both serve on the committee.

Osmek previously chaired the Senate Energy and Utilities Finance and Policy Committee.

A request seeking comment from Osmek directly and through a caucus spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..