As many of you may have already heard, the Senate bonding bill was passed to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, the St. Cloud Civic Center was not included. While this is a setback, there are still more than two months left in the legislative session and we will continue to advocate for project funding until the end of session.
Advocacy for the project has benefited from great community support and that support should continue if not be heightened. All legislators have received the Meet Your Match materials and key legislators have received several e-mail and phone contacts from citizens in the St. Cloud area. As important, the St. Cloud area legislative delegation continues to work together to win approval for the project. We’re very pleased by the commitment we’ve seen by all of our area legislators.
Our time and energy is now focused on efforts to ensure that state bonding for expansion of the St. Cloud Civic Center is included in the House bonding bill. We expect to hear more details of the House bonding bill early next week. It’s not uncommon for local public assembly projects to take more than one legislative session to win approval. In the minds of many state appropriators, the Civic Center project was re-launched during this funding cycle, and it’s reasonable to think of this as “year one” in our advocacy effort.
We will continue to keep you informed of the legislative decisions made at the Capitol as time allows. However, we also ask that you continue your support through contact to all legislators across the state with a focus on members of the Capital Improvement Committees in the House and Senate.
