Aug 09 Larry Hosch vs. the Farmers

This past week, I've spent a ton of time at the Benton County Republican Party's booth at the Benton County Fair. As a result of that decision, I wasn't able to attend Wednesday night's meeting on Green Acres tax policy in Cold Spring. Though the time spent at the fair was productive, it sounds like the meeting was explosive.

Based on the reports I got from the legislators and candidates who participated in the meeting, the overwhelming consensus is that the farmers still aren't satisfied with the changes made after Rep. Lenczewski's original changes implemented during the 2008 session.

Let's recall that last Wednesday night was a gorgeous summer evening, with temps in the low-to-mid 80's and a nice breeze. With that type of weather, you'd expect attendance for this meeting to be sparse. It was anything but sparsely attended, with 150 people reportedly attending.

After the legislators' and candidates' opening statements on Green Acres, the audience posed questions or stated their opinion on how their farm is being affected by Green Acres tax policy.

The three reports I've gotten is that the people attending were still mightily upset with their property tax bills. This afternoon, I got into a comment war on the St. Cloud Times' website with Rep. Hosch. Here's one of his replies:

I promised to work on fixing the problems with Green Acres, which I did. I am focused on getting things done, not working on something that simply won't pass and yelling at the top of my lungs about who's to blame. I worked on, authored, supported and participated on the conference committee for the following fixes, which were supported by the Farm Bureau, Farmer's Union, Corn Growers Assoc, Association of MN counties and many more Ag groups.

Repealing the 7 year pay back penalty, allowing CRP and RIM lands to be included in green acres, allowing non productive land to be included like sloughs, wind breaks, etc. We also passed with my support the ability to transfer Green acres land without a penalty, modifying the rural preserve plan process, extending opt in times, etc. etc. These all passed and became law. These changes greatly improved the disastrous Green Acres changes from 2008.

Isn't it telling that Rep. Hosch authored changes to Rep. Lenczewski's disastrous bill and the farmers are still upset?

HINT TO REP. HOSCH: You're in trouble if you've made changes and the farmers are still upset. It doesn't sound like farmers are impressed with your list of farm organizations that support your changes.

In the end, that's what matters most. You don't serve these farm organizations. You serve people. Based on their reaction Wednesday night, I'd say that Rep. Hosch hasn't represented HD-14B's farmers very well. In that district, that's a big problem.

I think Rep. Hosch understands this. From the reports I'm getting, he's working hard. I'm just not convinced he's connecting with his constituents like he did in other elections. The worst thing that could've happened to Rep. Hosch was becoming an assistant majority leader. From that point forward, Rep. Hosch wasn't allowed to vote the way his constituents wanted him to vote as often as they would've liked. Too often, Rep. Hosch wasn't allowed to stray from the leadership's agenda.

As a result of sticking too closely with the DFL leadership, Rep. Hosch will be in the farmers' crosshairs the first Tuesday this November.

Comments welcome at LFR.