Highway 14

project suffers

possible setback

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

OWATONNA -- Gloom turned into anger when members of the Highway 14 Partnership steering committee were told about a major setback to accelerating the expansion of U.S. Highway 14 to four lanes from Rochester to Eagle Lake.

The environmental impact statement for the segment between Dodge Center and Owatonna has expired, and Minnesota Department of Transportation's Rochester District has shifted funding for that segment to U.S. Highway 52. This possibly could delay work on the U.S. 14 segment until 2013.

"It was a dirty deal," said Councilor Joel Albrecht, New Ulm's representative on the steering committee, after a meeting Wednesday in Owatonna. "You just can't trust MnDOT."

While the news was a jolt to New Ulm's hope of finally getting the Mankato-New Ulm segment on MnDOT's project schedule, New Ulm could take some solace in being selected as the site of the organization's annual full-membership meeting the third week of January 2002.

Highway 14 Partnership's rebuttal to the Rochester District's action will be an effort to have money for a new environmental impact statement included in the state Legislature's 2003 omnibus highway construction and bridges funding bill.

Still, under current state legislative policy of not designating funds for specific projects, MnDOT would not be obligated to spend the money on a new EIS.

"But I think that is going to change," Albrecht said later. "The Senate already can specify money for specific projects in certain cases, and I think the House is getting angry enough at the way MnDOT operates to change back to telling them what to spend the money on.

"Take the 2000 appropriation," Albrecht said. "MnDOT told the Legislature they had this many projects already to start on, and it turned out they didn't have any ready. I think those legislators will have a long memory."

The group also decided it was time to become "more adversarial, more aggressive" in battling MnDOT.

The Partnership's strategy for 2002 includes a concentrated media campaign to try to force MnDOT to deal with U.S. Highway 14, as well as efforts to make the highway an issue in the 2002 election campaigns.

This plan of action would include meeting with gubernatorial and legislative candidates to obtain commitments to fix Highway 14, as well as trying to gain commitments from congressional candidates to include the highway project in the 2003 reauthorization bill.

Other strategies include generating public support in influencing legislators and MnDOT by direct communication with community residents and affiliate member employees, waging a "coordinated and sustained" media campaign, as well as continuing lobbying efforts on key legislators who can help keep the highway project moving.

As far as Albrecht is concerned, the campaign starts today. Albrecht, City Council President Dan Beranek, Owatonna Mayor Peter Conner, Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges and Corey Elmer, representing the group's lobbying firm, travel to Buffalo to meet with U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy's staff.