Published Friday, May 12, 2000
In the end, Krinkie loses and light rail wins
Mike Kaszuba / Star Tribune
As the smoke cleared from this week's legislative all-nighter, Rep. Phil Krinkie was counting up his losses.
Krinkie, the Shoreview Republican who has been a leading opponent of lightrail, had watched as all of the legislative proposals that were inserted this session to thwart the proposed $548 million project failed. And then, in Wednesday's early hours, he watched as his colleagues repealed the law he had co-authored and used last year to force a cost-benefit analysis of the line.
Krinkie directed much of his frustration Thursday at the House Republican leadership, particularly speaker Steve Sviggum and Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud and chairman of the Capital Investment Committee. He said Knoblach agreed to the repeal as part of a last-minute conference committee deal without telling him.
"They sold me out," said Krinkie. "The speaker and the House Republicans gave lip service to the idea they didn't want lightrail. In the end, it was a complete and total surrender."
Knoblach said the law, which required a cost-benefit analysis for any state project or service costing at least $5 million, was "bad policy." He added: "How do you decide what the cost-benefit analysis is on a new park?"
He said he did regret not talking to Krinkie beforehand, but blamed "crazy times" and the fact that he slept only four hours during the session's final days. He added that Krinkie was equally guilty of not communicating during the session. "I don't think he has a right to grumble about lack of communication," he said.
Knoblach said that he consulted Sviggum and that the speaker supported the law personally but that House Republicans had not taken a caucus position on it. Krinkie used the law last year to show that the proposed light-rail line, Minnesota's first, would return 42 cents on the dollar. The law also was the basis of a since-dismissed lawsuit filed by Krinkie against Gov. Jesse Ventura.
In the end, Krinkie persuaded only two dozen of his colleagues to join him in a last-ditch effort to keep the law intact.
"Wasn't that a shame?" chided Hennepin County Board Member Peter McLaughlin, a light-rail supporter, after watching the vote to repeal. "That's the 24 true believers. That's the zealous, anti-[lightrail] group.
"Killer bees, I called them. . . . We exterminated them all."
So what's next for Krinkie? "I don't know at this point," he said. "This Legislature has such little regard for taxpayers' money . . . The Legislature doesn't want accountability of any type."
© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.