Advanced Search

Background

In 2006 MRR conducted a citizen audit of St. Louis County's public gas-tax funding for motorized recreation program and presented the audit to the St. Louis County Attorney's office on May 23, 2007. The public pays for motorized recreation with every purchase of gasoline and these funds are disbursed through over 100 local units of government statewide, including the largest county east of the Mississippi River - St. Louis County.

In September , after the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, MRR urged St. Louis County to respond to its audit: Gas-tax reform elevates importance and urgency of MRR 's Citizen Audit of St. Louis Co,

After five months St. Louis County dismisses MRR's audit with October 17 reply - county will not comment on specific findings made by MRR

November 8, 2007

MRR calls on St. Louis County Attorney, Melanie Ford and St. Louis County Auditor, Donald Dicklich to declare
required documents absent with the below letter today via U.S. mail.

November 8, 2007

Via U.S. Mail

Ms. Melanie Ford, County Attorney                          Mr. Donald Dicklich, County Auditor
Saint Louis County                                                     Saint Louis County
100 North 5th Avenue West, #501                              100 North 5th Avenue West, #214
Duluth, MN  55802                                                    Duluth, MN  55802

Dear Ms. Ford and Mr. Dicklich,

We are disappointed with the county’s October 17 response to MRR’s May 23, 2007 audit of St. Louis County’s publicly funded motorized recreation program.  Your response, which took the county five months to formulate, appears to have entirely dismissed substantive and unresolved MRR concerns regarding the disbursement of public gas-tax funds to snowmobile clubs in violation of state grant agreements.  We were highly disappointed to read that the county attorney’s office  has chosen to “not comment on the specific findings” MRR made in our audit.  A head-in-the-sand approach will not resolve substantive and persistent problems regarding the county’s gas-tax funding of snowmobile routes and clubs which we reiterate below.

MRR is well aware that, since our audit, the Minnesota DNR has created a new format and lexicon in its motorized recreation grant agreements with local units of government. Still, a fundamental and basic prerequisite for funding continues to be written permission from private property owners to cross their land in the form of easements, leases or permits.  As MRR makes explicit in our audit (provided to Tim Lee in your office on May 23, 2007), St. Louis County does not currently have adequate maps for identifying properties crossed by publicly funded snowmobile routes and does not have such written permission from all property owners whose land is crossed.  To reiterate a key finding in our audit, MRR finds that adequate maps and written permission do not exist for a single snowmobile route funded by the county. 

For example and as described in our audit, St. Louis County continues to disburse public gas-tax funds to the Hermantown Nightriders Snowmobile Club without written permission from all property owners – a basic requirement of gas-tax grant-in-aid funding.  MRR has repeatedly provided the county with evidence that the Hermantown Nightriders were submitting property owner lists that included the names of land owners who never gave permission, many who had withdrawn permission and several who were deceased.  The county is in violation of grant agreements, and simple common sense,  that requires written permission from property owners before public funds are disbursed to private snowmobile clubs.  Without adequate maps and written permission from private property owners, St. Louis County is wittingly and unwittingly a sponsor of gas-tax funded trespass on private property.

Water crossing and wetland permits also continue to be required before public gas-tax funds are disbursed to local snowmobile clubs.  Lack of adequate maps prevents the county from insuring that water crossing and wetland permits are in hand before disbursing funds to snowmobile clubs and their bulldozers.  St. Louis County provided gas-tax funds to the  Hermantown Nightriders to bulldoze a snowmobile route in a wetland and across a stream on private property without written permission from the land owner.  The Nightriders did this work with the unauthorized use of a City of Hermantown front end loader.   No maps, no permission, no oversight.

During MRR’s audit of the county’s gas-tax funded motorized recreation program, we were struck by the regular absence of adequate maps and written permission from property owners.  We repeatedly requested absent documents and were informed in writing by County Auditor Dicklich that MRR possessed all existing documents related to the county’s publicly funded motorized recreation program, thus reinforcing our conclusions as to the absence of required documents.

MRR urges the St. Louis County Attorney and the St. Louis County Auditor to examine the specific findings made in MRR’s May 23, 2007 audit regarding the county’s lack of the following documents required for the county’s gas-tax funding of snowmobile routes and clubs:

• adequate maps showing current actual route locations for the accurate identification of all properties, waterways and wetlands crossed,
• written permission, ie., easements, leases or permits from all  property owners,
• water crossing permits,
• wetland permits.

If St. Louis County has, since our May 23 audit, obtained adequate maps for each publicly funded snowmobile route that allow for the accurate listing of all properties, waterways and wetlands crossed, please provide these documents to us per the Minnesota Data Practices Act.  If St. Louis County has obtained written permission from all landowners for identified properties crossed by publicly funded snowmobile routes, please also provide these documents.

MRR understands that gas-tax funding proposals for snowmobile clubs are generally approved without inspection on consent agenda by the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners around this time of year.  MRR believes that for St. Louis County to do so in the presence of overwhelming evidence that the county is in violation of fundamental grant requirements would be an abrogation of the county’s legal and moral obligation to protect Minnesota’s tax-payers, private property owners and the county’s wetlands and streams. 

Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation looks to the County Attorney and County Auditor to inform the public regarding pending gas-tax funding of snowmobile routes and clubs.  MRR calls on you to either provide the above required documents for each snowmobile route and club funded by the county or make a simple public declaration that corroborates MRR’s evidentiary finding that these fundamental and required documents are absent from the county’s files. 

Sincerely,

Jeff Brown
Executive Director

cc.        Dana Frey, St. Louis County Administrator

            St. Louis County Commissioners

 

Take Action:

St. Louis County is the largest county east of the Mississippi River, home to the Superior Hiking Trail and Boundary Waters Canoe Area and at the Head of the Great Lakes. A recent conference on Lake Superior in Duluth reminded us that we must protect and care for the streams and wetlands around the lake.

Contact St. Louis County Commissioners and tell them there should be no gas-tax funding of motorized recreation without required maps, landowner permission and water crossing and wetland permits.

Make a tax-deductible contribution to MRR's campaign to reform public funding of motorized recreation. Your contribution will be doubled!