By allowing concerns about a state shutdown to run until the last minute, our state lawmakers have let us down.
With less than 24 hours before it was known whether a shutdown would occur, local loggers were scrambling to get before a Koochiching County District Court judge in an effort to force the state to honor its contracts with them.
A hearing on a request for a temporary restraining order that would keep the state from halting timber operations on state forests was scheduled for late Thursday.
The outcome of the hearing — should the state shutdown be underway — has statewide implications.
Loggers are already facing tough economic times, with rising fuel and equipment costs. A state government shutdown that would keep them out of state forests could end up ruining some already faltering businesses, adding to the ranks of the unemployed, and causing hardship for other businesses that rely on the logging industry.
Even our local paper mill may be affected should these loggers not be able to provide the wood from state forests the company is expecting for its operations.
Clearly, lawmakers and the state’s governor ought to learn a lesson from the far-reaching implications of their lack of agreement this year.
And lawmakers and the governor must understand that Minnesotans’ memories of this near crisis will likely play a role in outcome of upcoming elections.
Regardless of the Thursday’s hearing and whether we are in government shutdown mode, behaviors and thinking must change in St. Paul so that Minnesotans will never expend this kind of energy worrying about and planning for such an event.
