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Crafting a state building projects funding bill tops the 2006 legislative agenda, but other issues will see debate, says House Speaker Steve Sviggum. "From the House Republican agenda, we're going to try to pass one major issue each week of the session," Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said in a recent interview while he was in Bemidji with GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty. It includes hot-button issues such as immigration reform and a constitutional amendment question to ban same-sex marriages. "It will be a short session, obviously headed by the bonding bill," he said.
Funding to start planning a regional events center will be included in Gov. Tim Pawlenty's state building projects bonding bill, he said Friday. The announcement came at the end of his address to a luncheon crowd at Northwest Technical College-Bemidji, followed by an extended round of applause from the 80 attendees. "We're going to put the state support for the regional events center in the bonding bill that we're going to announce on Jan. 17," the Republican governor said.
An airport means more to a regional economy than just allowing vacationers to come and go, Bemidji Regional Airport officials say. It can provide a campus for high-paid aircraft industry jobs, such as the manufacturer that will locate at the Bemidji Airport, Airport Manager Harold Van Leeuwen said Friday. DreamCatcher Aviation has signed a letter of intent to bring its aircraft customization services to Bemidji, Van Leeuwen said during a meeting with Gov. Tim Pawlenty and House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon.
Bemidji, as a regional center, needs dynamic local leadership that embraces challenges in order to succeed, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Friday. And, after hearing a pitch about "Bemidji Leads!", the community's group of stewards and the destiny they have laid out for Bemidji, Pawlenty said it exists here. "Do not underestimate the power, the potent power, of what it means to have positive, dynamic leaders at a community and local level," Pawlenty said at a Northwest Technical College-Bemidji lunch which drew about 80 community leaders.