Maple Grove Seeks Legislative Help and Collaboration This Session
Maple Grove city leaders want the state to let it recoup some rebates on construction materials on the on-going community center expansion project. Mayor Mark Steffenson said it could be worth millions of dollars to the city.
“We’ll continue to pursue that,” said City Administrator Heidi Nelson. “There are some ways to bid that project and the agreements with the construction management firm that you can try to address that sales tax piece, but we’re hoping to get this exemption piece is a lot cleaner and a lot simpler to get accomplished.”
Nelson also said the city may seek some clarification from the state on rules about e-bikes: what is and what is not allowed and is not then considered a street-worthy vehicle.
“I think if you’re walking on the trail and somebody goes by you on the side at 40 miles per hour on one of these little e-moto bikes, that is very disturbing,” said Nelson. “We’ve seen folks getting injured, that type of thing, so we just really want to get our arms around that.”
The police department will have an enforcement and education push this spring as the weather warms up and the trails start to fill up with those walking, running, and biking.
Otherwise, Nelson said the city will continue to work with other jurisdictions on bills of interest, including about local control over zoning for housing particularly.
“There’s been a number of bills proposed over the past sessions really about that local zoning control and making more of that controlled at the state level and, as a local city, we want to make sure we have local control over those things,” she said. “We recognize and understand sort of the housing challenges in Minnesota, and so we’ll continue to monitor that and if there’s things that could be workable, we’ll be part of other groups that are working on those bill collectively.”
Also, Nelson said the city is in partnership with its northwestern suburban neighbors about looking for more control over group home licensing and oversight.
“Sometimes we see proper level of care isn’t being provided, and our public safety is really kind of being subbed in for some of that care,” said Nelson. “Some of the oversight, the living conditions, can be a concern.”
