 While Election Day is only about a month away and tonight Lakeland Public Television resumed its long tradition of providing you a look at your state legislative candidates facing off in head-to-head debates. In our first debate here on Lakeland PBS, it was House District 5B where incumbent Republican Sandy Lehmann met up with DFL challenger Pat Maduri. One of the topics discussed was transportation in the rural part of the state. We can't continue to kick the can down the road every biennium to fund transportation. We need a long-term plan and we need a long-term sustainability in place to make that happen. And I know this last legislative session, we did the kind of shift that goes back to the plenty years of taking some out of the general fund. We bonded for it. We took some out of the reserves. We don't have a long-term sustainable plan for transportation going forward and we need to have that. The real transportation discussion is going on, particularly in the Grand Rapids area in Northeastern Minnesota right now, on how we served our growing elderly population and our disabled population with transportation options. We don't have metro mobility like I have when I'm in the Twin Cities with my husband who's disabled. We use metro mobility. But here in Northern Minnesota, we don't have those options. So we need to recognize that our population is growing older. In the District 5A representative race incumbent Republican Matt Bliss is being challenged by former state representative John Purcell of the DFL party. The candidates discussed many topics including safely transporting oil with the proposed line 3 pipeline. We're an oil-based society and until that changes, we have to pick the route that has the most safety features with it. And by far the pipelines are the safest way and most economical way to transport oil. Any new pipeline, the route needs to be carefully considered. Water is our primary resource and we have an abundance of it. Let's don't mess it up. So let's avoid crossing and going underwater wherever we can. Our debates continue on Wednesday night with a focus on the House 2B and the House 2A races. Our live televised coverage begins at 7 p.m.