Question 4:

The Governor of Minnesota will be asked to come up with solutions to a variety of issues that culminate in the tension between the need to protect the environment, and the need to sustain economic development. Solutions to conflicts that have arisen through issues such as the BWCA, timber resources, agriculture, including feedlots, and others will require making difficult choices and creating consensus. What are some of the tradeoffs you see in these rural and urban issues? In your rebuttal please respond to these two questions. Can you create consensus between these divergent Minnesota interests to work out some of these problems. If so, how would you create that consensus?

DAYTON Question 4 rebuttal:

"Creating consensus" from development/protection conflicts often is neither realistic nor even desirable in a state with over 4.3 million people. A Governor and her/his administration should be involved in consensus building, particularly by listening to different interests and views, searching for common ground, and representing the broad, public interest. Ultimately, however, a Governor and government must lead by making difficult decisions amidst controversy and by then moving the state ahead.

While broad public support is desirable, opposition is almost inevitable. And it’s acceptable. What is needed is not necessarily consensus, but rather the mechanisms to present disagreements in a public forum, empower a representative public entity to make decisions, and implement those decisions.

Presently, these review and decision-making processes in Minnesota have become cumbersome, costly, and seemingly endless. Lengthy delays have been substituted for protection; protracted maybes for yes and no answers.

The state’s review and decision-making procedures should be shortened and streamlined. One public agency with one public board should be empowered to make final decisions. Agency reviews, rulemaking, EIS procedures, ALJ hearings, injunctions, and appeals all should be consolidated into one comprehensive, and comprehensible process.

The goals of these reforms should be:

1) Represent the broad public interest in maximizing healthy economic growth, strong environmental protection, and wise resource use and conservation;

2) Encourage mediation and conciliation wherever possible;

3) When necessary, make decisions more efficiently and less expensively for all concerned.

Not everyone will agree or be happy with those decisions. That’s life. Life isn’t like Burger King. We don’t always get to have it our way. The remaining question is: Can we accept that reality, when it applies to us?