 Northern Minnesota. Watch Debate Night 2018, sponsored in part by AFSCME Council 5, a statewide union of more than 40,000 public employees working together to elect candidates who represent the values of real Minnesotans. Debate Night 2018 is sponsored in part by AFSCME Council 5, a statewide union of more than 40,000 public employees working together to elect candidates who represent the values of real Minnesotans. Lakeland PBS, the Bemidji Pioneer, the Brainer Dispatch, and Northern Community Radio are proud to present Debate Night 2018, a look at our area of legislative candidates. And now, the State House of Representatives District 5B Debate, your moderator tonight is Bethany Wesley. Good evening and welcome to Debate Night 2018. We will feature seven state legislative debates this week over four nights of television. Tonight we're live from our Lakeland PBS studio in Bemidji and we'll first begin with the candidates running for District 5B. Sandy Lehmann from the Republican Party and Pat Maduri from the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. Our panel tonight features from my left, Dennis Wyman, News Director for Lakeland PBS, Matthew Lidkey, Government Reporter for the Bemidji Pioneer, and Heidi Holton, the News and Public Affairs Director for Northern Community Radio, KAXE, and KBXE. Now, the rules for tonight's debate. Each candidate will get three minutes for an opening statement. Afterwards, our panelists will begin asking questions of our candidates. Some of these questions will be of the panelists' own choosing. Others may come from the public. The order of the candidate's responses will be rotated, beginning with opening statements and finishing with their closing statements. Each candidate will have two minutes for each question. Each candidate will also have the opportunity for a one-minute rebuttal. Tonight, each candidate also will have the option of a one-minute bonus time to add on to one of their answers. This can be used during the question to the initial question or during the rebuttal, but it can only be used once. Questions will continue until we are about 50 minutes into the debate, at which time we will move on to closing comments. Closing comments can be two minutes each. Okay, enough about the rules. We're going to get started. Opening the debate tonight will be Sandy Layman. Sandy, your opening statement. Hi, I'm Sandy Layman. I'm representative for House District 5B. I'm just finishing my first term this year and seeking re-election for a second term. I want to thank Lakeland TV and I want to thank all of you for being here tonight and hosting this important forum. We don't get enough opportunities to have these open discussions and I'm looking forward to a good discussion tonight. Well, when I went to St. Paul two years ago, I had some priorities. The priorities were healthcare reform, tax relief, investment in roads and bridges, and I triple RV governance reform. When May of 2017 came around, I was happy to report that all of those priorities had been accomplished. The bills had been signed by the governor and I could report back to my constituents that our priorities were achieved. But along with the passage of those larger statewide bills, I was really happy to support two bonding bills. Those bonding bills encompassed important projects to our district like funding for the Miles Wright Performing Arts Center. Funding for the Mississippi River Pedestrian Bridge. Funding for the Northern Community Radial Station, Antenna. Funding for the Armory Renovations and so on. And more importantly, I was able to be chief author of the Sustainable Forest Incentive Act, which served as the vehicle for an out of court settlement between Blandon Paper Company, Itasca County and the surrounding counties that served to save Itasca County taxpayers millions of dollars. So all of these projects were important to my constituents, important to me. And I was honored to be in a position to make these things happen. I am looking to be reelected and to go back to St. Paul to continue to work on these shared priorities. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. Pat? Thank you. Thank you, Lakeland Television, for sponsoring this event and all the participants that are here tonight. And also thanks, Sandy, for being a participant as well. I'm Pat Maduri, I'm a candidate for the House Seat District 5B, which encompasses a greater portion of the greater Grand Rapids area, as well as a number of communities within Itasca County, and three community areas down in Cass County, which takes into Reamer, Pine River, and Bacchus. I currently reside in Harris Township, outside of Grand Rapids, with my wife, Donna. We have two daughters, Leah, who lives in Portland, Oregon, and she works as a physician assistant. Our youngest daughter, Kara, lives in Coacent with her husband, Troy, along with her three children, and Kara and Troy both work in law enforcement. For the last 40 years, I've been serving the residents of Itasca County in the last 34 years as a law enforcement officer, working in that capacity. And the last 16 of those 34 is the elected sheriff of Itasca County. I retired eight years ago as a county sheriff, and shortly thereafter, I decided to run for school board for ISD 318, which encompasses Grand Rapids and Big Fork School District, and I've been serving in that capacity for the last six years. I've also fortunate to serve on several regional and state boards as well, including Rams, which is Reigns Association of Municipalities and Schools. Itasca Community Foundation, which I just finished my six-year stint there, currently serve on the Mardag Foundation out of the Twin Cities. My past and current community volunteer work is focused on such diverse issues as homelessness, which I serve on the Grace House Homeless Board in Grand Rapids, school district partnerships, health care. I serve on the Arrowhead ProCare Health Care Board, which is a consortium of government entities that provide health insurance for those entities. Mine Planning Board, Domestic Violent Prevention, and Business Promotion within the region. My visits with individuals and families across the legislative district, I've been hearing about several issues that match my concerns as well. With your support in this election, I hope to focus on issues relating to education, health care, housing, job creation, and diversification of the job creation and support of our Main Street businesses, as well as government transparency and action. Transportation and broadband are other issues that people have told me that they want leadership from our state legislators on. In the area of education, I support continued investment in K-12 and post-secondary as well as technical education programs that serve our young people and their families in northern Minnesota. I understand and support new childcare initiatives and increased access to these programs. The bottom line is that all our citizens need access to quality education, health care, and job that moves them up to economic ladder. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Our first question from our first panelist will be Heidi, and Pat, you'll answer first. Heidi? So the first question has to do with kind of the future of 5B in northern Minnesota. So mining, paper production, logging, they were all industries that sustained northern Minnesota, and they're still important, but there's been lots of changes, mechanization, ownership outside of northern Minnesota, so they don't have the impact they once did. So what do you see in this district for the future, and if you can, give us some examples of constituents you've talked to and things you see for the future. Well, I think you raised an excellent point, and I throw power in there as well because we have Minnesota power in Nitesca County. When you sit down and look at Minnesota power and a blend of paper and a mining to the east in Nitesca County, they've been all good cornerstones, provided great jobs, still there, but not as many people. So I think the key is that we need to diversify our economy and look at other industry that we can bring into our area that can stand alone, that's not tied to the mining, that's not tied to the paper, not tied to the power. So if the mining, paper, or power take a downturn as they have in the past, we still have other industries that can support people in good-paying jobs. For example, we have Swan Machine in Grand Rapids, there's 14 employees there, good pay, good benefits, something that the city of Grand Rapids had expansion from, I think, was a community of perm. We have ASV that's back in Grand Rapids as well, again, good-paying jobs there. So we need to sit down and look at other industries that we can bring into our geographical area here. Maybe something different in regards to our pulpy, our forestry products and stuff. To me, we're going to start thinking outside of the box, and nothing that's tied to the power, nothing that's tied to the paper, nothing that's tied to the mining aspect of it, which we've been tied to, to all those years. So again, for me, let's start thinking outside of the box, and then I think we need to be more aggressive regionally to go after those particular businesses that might be looking for a place to land. We have a great workforce, we have a great area. As far as I'm concerned, second area. To none, to live here. I was fortunate to live here all my life, born and raised here. So again, sitting down and looking at what we can do differently and not having those three mainstays there. I think they'll always be there, not as many people. So we've got to start looking outside of the box, as I said, and looking at other industries coming in. Thanks, Pat. Sandy. Well, I would differ a little bit from what Pat said and that I wouldn't completely discount the natural resource industries that have built our economy. We are sitting in the midst of the wood baskets of Northern Minnesota and the southern part of Canada and Wisconsin and Michigan. Really the whole central part of North America is the wood baskets. And we need to preserve the infrastructure that we have here, our logging infrastructure is so critical to any type of wood product that might come our way. A blended paper company, UPM, calls itself the bio for company. And that's for a reason. That's because it's not just paper. They're looking at the future and what other bio products could come from our wood products. I think that Grand Rapids, for instance, would be situated in a very good position to be a location for the next generation wood product. So I think we need to be ready to support something of that nature. With different types of energy coming online, we have solar panels, for instance, being manufactured in Mountain Iron with Helene manufacturing. So that is an industry. But more importantly, as I've gone around to talk with businesses, all kinds of businesses and organizations in the district, what I'm hearing loud and clear is that their businesses are ready to expand but they can't find the workers. So I know that growth from within is the most sustainable kind of growth we can have in our economy. If we can find the workers and match the workers with our existing businesses, we will grow as an economy. And then I can't leave out broadband. I was the chief author of the broadband bill this year and a supporter last year. And broadband is essential so that our local entrepreneurs and others can work out of their homes and create businesses locally. Thank you, Sandy. Our next question will come from Dennis Wyman and Sandy will be first. Okay, well thank you. Let's talk some more about broadband. During the 2017 legislation session, the legislature included $20 million for the border-to-border broadband grant program. The goal is to provide state resources that help make the financial case for new and existing providers to invest in building infrastructures into unserved or underserved areas of the state. How important is expanding broadband in your district and how big of a priority would this be for you if elected? Sandy. Well, that's an easy question for the chief author of the broadband bill in the 2018 session. Much of my work as an economic developer revolved around broadband. Back in the late 1990s, when broadband was first a word, I was the founder of the Itasca Technology Exchange in Grand Rapids, and that was the first place where you could actually get high-speed internet. And we formed the Itasca Technology Exchange so that we could bring businesses that relied on the high-speed internet. And it still is in existence today. But since that time, I have worked with the DoIT initiative that the IEEE-RB started back in Commissioner Jim Gustafson's days to the time when I was commissioner and led the broadband effort. And now I am privileged and honored to be in the legislature and actually to make the laws that would provide the funding for broadband. It's not as easy as you think, however. We're in a tough battle down in the legislature for the few dollars that are available. And so we fought like heck. The last session I had a bill in excess of $50 million for broadband. When all was said and done, the bill that resulted was a $15 million broadband bill. And that was viewed by the governor. So I look at broadband just in Itasca County between the year 2015 and 2017 because of the border to border broadband program. $10.7 million has been invested in broadband just in Itasca County. So it's working and it's connecting people but we still have a ways to go. Thanks, Andy. Pat. Well, I agree with the fact that broadband is important and I'm one of the victims, if you will. I'm nine miles out of town and I don't have high-speed internet. So vitally important on a personal note, but I think it's more important than the standpoint of when we talk about economic development that was mentioned. The local entrepreneurs that want to move up in our geographical area here, that's one of the things they had. Do we have broadband? They want to live on a lake someplace that might not be there. So I think it's vitally important to our, again, to our survival of economic development. It's also important from the school standpoint aspect of it. Currently, we have all of our students with iPads and homework assignments and things of that nature. We have parts of our county on 318, which is 2,000 square miles of the school district, doesn't have that capability of broadband. So again, I think it's vitally important that we create the plan, fund the plan, and make it sustainable going forward. If we truly want to do this, we truly need to make it a priority to have the funding in place and make it border-to-border across every nook and cranny in the state of Minnesota. And I know it's been said, you've probably heard it many times and I'll repeat it again. It's no different than the real electric cooperative bringing power out to the rural areas years ago. It's not a want. It's a necessity today for the regular person to survive, so to speak, of paying bills electronically, having access to information, students and schoolwork. And again, it's a piece of economic development. You know, we talk about the veto by the governor. Yeah, there was 15 million in the bill. We got to ask ourselves, why did the governor veto the bill and the money not get allocated? I think you sit on and look at it. It was a bad session this last session. Massive, omnibus bill, a number of things in that bill that were not good for the state of Minnesota, so it kind of put it in a bad situation. Bad for all of us, but the reality was it was a bad bill going forward. So again, vitally important for us to, for our survival moving forward. Thanks, Pat. Our next question comes from Matthew. Matthew? Thank you. I wanted to ask about rural daycare. Right now in this region, communities such as Black Duck, which is more local, are facing a shortage of health care or daycare availability, which is putting a strain on workers because they're not able to find enough daycare for their children. What are some solutions that you are thinking of bringing to the table when you think of necessities like daycare for rural workers? Pat, you're first. Well, you're right. It is a problem, and I think added to that problem is the school component. And when I sit down and think about daycare, I think it's important that we sit down and have that component for the children under five years of age as well as part of the daycare. We've got two initiatives that we're working on here in the city of Coacet, in the city of Grand Rapids, just kind of getting off the ground. The city of Coacet one is a partnership with our school bond referendum that passed here in April. And the Coacet school is going to get remodeled and the city of Coacet is going to put a section of building on and they're looking at partnering up with our local YMCA to provide daycare to help cover that daycare shortage. And the number I heard, I think we have close to 500 young toddlers that need access to schooling as well as daycare in itself. The other project is a project that's called the city of Grand Rapids is working on adding on to their civic center. There's some renovations that need to happen at the civic center and they're also looking at some daycare possibilities as well. The bigger picture is, is I think we're going to have to come in these rural areas and do a public-private partnership and that's looking like what the city of Coacet is in a sense public-private. The city of Coacet is building the building which is going to be tied to the school, but the local YMCA is going to be providing that service there. At least that's the direction that it's going. Tough issue, especially when working families need the daycare services and we've got to come together as a community and we have to come together as a county or as a district if you will and see what we can do to provide more opportunities and more opportunity or more options for the parents. Thanks Pat. Sandy. Well from the legislative perspective the Dayton administration has been very tough on childcare workers from attempts to unionize all the childcare workers to increased rules and regulations that have been just a nightmare really very burdensome to people who are trying to just operate daycare centers out of their homes. As I'm outdoor knocking right now on campaigns, I have talked with daycare providers who are trying to make a go of it and they're telling me that it's gotten a little bit easier. We've have passed some legislation in the last two sessions to ease up on those regulations just some common sense things. Daycare is not a one size fits all at all and so when the state comes down with heavy handed regulations it's really tough on people who are trying to just simply operate a nice daycare center out of their home. I think the answer is multifaceted. It's a combination of public and private. I am looking forward to a childcare summit that's going to take place later this month. It's kind of a cooperative between the Northland Foundation, the IEEE or being the Blannon Foundation. They're really on top of this topic and looking at an inventory to see how many openings we do have and what the need is. But it's a very important component of economic development. Our young families that we want to attract to the region need to have, need to know that they have quality daycare when they come to District 5B and so I think it's important we need to continue to address it. We're not done and it's not a one size fits all. It's going to be a kind of a hybrid of public and private partnerships. Thanks, Sandy. We are back to Heidi. Last June, the Public Utilities Commission gave a green light to Enbridge Energy's replacement of Line 3 and just recently opponents, tribal and environmental groups have asked for them to reconsider. Based on the vulnerable lands, the new pipeline will travel through. But Enbridge says the old line is also vulnerable to corrosion and cracking. So the pipeline has been there for over 60 years. How do you serve constituents who have diverse and strong opinions about the pipeline? Sandy. Well, you're right, Heidi. The pipeline is an old pipeline. It was put in place in the 1960s and actually the federal government has asked Enbridge to replace the pipeline for safety reasons. It's not safe for environmental reasons, certainly to have an old rusty pipeline in the ground. And then it's inadequate. It's smaller than what is needed for current production. Heidi, I think your question is how do you communicate to various constituents who might be opposed to the pipeline? And I say just lay out the facts. And the fact of the matter is we are not going to stop oil from coming out of the ground. I think there's some folks who feel if we don't build a pipeline, maybe we'll stop using oil. If we don't build a pipeline in the ground, it will just simply be shipped by rail and rail is far more dangerous than the pipeline. Or the pipeline will be built around the state of Minnesota and Minnesota will lose on the jobs and economic development that would come from the pipeline. So I would... I'm a proponent of the Enbridge pipeline. I think that we need to recognize that we still depend on the transportation of oil in a safe way. Enbridge has been asked to do this by the federal government and I think Minnesota is ready to go with the Enbridge line. Thanks, Sandy. The pipeline is the safest way to transport the oil versus rail or versus by a bulk truck. I appreciate the concerns that people have about it, but I think it really comes down and listening, safety, taking into account all the pieces that come into play. There's a process that we go through and that's part of the public utility's job to work through that process and work through it so that people have an opportunity to share their concerns, bring their concerns forward and ultimately they have to make the decision on how to do it. And as mentioned, we're just not going to turn the light switch off for oil tomorrow unless we have some other alternative. It's here. We're all dependent on it one way or another. How we got here today by the fuel in our cars getting here. So I think the key thing is to make sure that the lines of communications are open and they stay open. We continue to listen and if something changes we need to continue back to the people that have those concerns. But again, the pipeline is the safest way to transport that oil. In my 10-year in law enforcement we had an incident out at ICC and this goes back a number of years and a break in the line. Ann Bridge was a very good company to work with back then. They cleaned the area up, put it back to the way it was. Yes, it displaced some people there but I got to give them a lot of credit for what they did. They did a good job and again with what we're faced with today on the old pipeline we have to sit on and look at are we going to leave the old pipeline and continue to transport it there or are we going to put a new pipeline in and make it safer where we're at and I really think that's where we're at today and it is the safest way to transport. Thanks Pat. Live TV, I forgot to ask you your rebuttal positions and so Sandy did you want to rebut you have a one minute rebuttal if you'd like to rebut to Pat and then Pat I'll give you the same opportunity. I think we covered the topic very well, thank you. Dennis Lyman. Well, a transportation question what do you see as the predominant transportation challenges of this part of the state over the next several decades and how do you propose that we meet them? Well, from my perspective transportation is always going to be an issue we have I think it's 147,000 miles of road here in the state of Minnesota and it's about maintaining those roads and it's about finding a plan and finding the revenue stream to make sure that plan stays in effect. 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 of 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 and you sit down and look at the last go-round on the commerce quarters of commerce outstate Minnesota was around Elk River area well I don't consider Elk River outstate Minnesota outstate Minnesota is way beyond Elk River and we didn't have any funding out of that go-round up here in northeastern Minnesota for that so again from my standpoint we need a good transportation system that helps our businesses its economic development it gets our products to market but we need a long-term sustainable plan going forward and sustainability is that funding piece the gas tax has not been raised since 2008 it's not tied to inflation there's just a number of things that we need to sit down and take a look at and I appreciate the fact that nobody wants to raise taxes but if we truly believe that transportation is economic development and we do need it to get our products to market we have to invest in it that's the bottom line raising gas tax is that it I'm open to looking at anything that we can do to create a funding stream that's sustainable that we can maintain our road systems and continue to build new road and put a new infrastructure to help us across the board thank you Pat Sandy transportation to me means roads and bridges in rural Minnesota and we're always in competition statewide with things like light rail which is far more expensive to maintain than roads and bridges but I'm happy to say that in this past biennium we passed the largest investment in roads and bridges without raising the gas tax really in the history of the state we did as a house put together a bill that would have placed a constitutional question on the ballot to allow Minnesota to have a long term funding stream by taking all of the funding streams related to automobiles and transportation and funneling it into into transportation unfortunately the senate did not take up that measure so it is something that we will I think look at again in the future because we do need a long term funding stream for transportation but then beyond roads and bridges which are always important I'm also very much in tune with the needs of the elderly and the needs of the disabled there's some real transportation discussions going on particularly in the Grand Rapids area northeast of 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 we do have disabled we need transportation options for everybody Thank you Sandy Rebuttal? Well again when you sit on and look at our needs because of 2017 the deficit to maintain our existing roads and bridges is over 400 million per year predicted to 18 billion over the next 20 years capital funding needs are 39 billion over the next 20 years improvements and expansion of infrastructure additional 200 million per year it's a problem and we got to find that sustainable funding and put the plan in place and make sure that the funding is there going forward in the future I agree that we need a long term funding stream I'm not so ready to go to increased gas tax I think that Minnesota still is one of the highest tax states in the country and I think that we have revenues that we could simply dedicate to transportation that make a lot of sense we have other dedicated funds and I think that dedicating transportation related revenue to transportation related costs certainly makes sense thank you back to Matthew, your question health care remains a topic that's on the minds of many Minnesotans today I wanted to jump into the topic of health care and get your thoughts on how you can help and how the legislature in general can help Minnesotans with their health care Sandy you're up sure health care remains the number one topic as I talk to households when I was door knocking at the end of 2016 I actually had a woman who was on the phone with her insurance agent and we had a three way conversation going her insurance agent was no longer going to be able to provide insurance in this region because of Obamacare and the changes that were happening to the individual market the person at the door was losing her insurance as a result of what was I going to do at the same time I was talking to other people primarily small business owners people who were on the individual market buying their own insurance and they were facing premium increases up to 67% so we went down to St. Paul and we knew that there was a long term fix that needed to happen excuse me but we needed to address these emergency issues and so we put prioritized our funding and we put funding in place to actually reimburse people for 25% of the cost of their premiums that was an immediate help that was welcomed but then we also set up more than $500 million over two years to set up a risk pool and that risk pool removed some of the risk excuse me from our healthcare providers that they will not increase premiums and so what has happened as a result of that is the double digit increases have stopped and in some cases actually the premiums have reduced have reduced going forward we need to continue of those nation leading reforms that we have started I know that there's many people talking about single payer options I think single payer options a lot of questions primarily what would the cost be what would the impact be to rural communities in particular and I'm afraid of what those answers might be thank you Sandy Pat well my take is on healthcare we need universal healthcare with a single payer system there's healthcare and there's a health insurance piece and two kind of tie together and if you have health insurance and you're paying high premiums and high deductibles that doesn't give you access to healthcare and we're dealing what's about 166,000 Minnesotans who have buy on individual private healthcare that's about 5% of our population and there's the other 95 have some form of health insurance and again it comes down to accessibility on that health insurance visiting with people knocking doors $25,000 in premiums up to $15,000 on deductibles that's not affordable and that's not accessible this last session 271 million each year for 18 and 19 so over 500 million was used to reimburse insurance for especially high cost claims which Sandy mentioned 80% of the individual's annual claims between $50,000 and $250,000 all we're doing is buying down premiums that's all we're doing we're just kicking the can down the road if we really want to get serious about healthcare we have to sit on and look at a plan and I say universal across the board I don't care whether you're a $100,000 earner or a $10,000 earner everybody should have the same level of healthcare across the board with that we all need to have skin in the game to that whether that's on a percentage basis or whatever the case may be we can't continue to kick the can down the road bringing a wider divide between the people that have insurance with higher premiums and higher deductibles in essence that does not give them access to healthcare all that's doing is making more money for the insurance company the insurance companies are not going to be losing money and it's all based on risk on what we're doing Sandy any rebuttal I have so many rebuttals I don't know where to begin single payer plan I have owners for a number of reasons number one the state of Minnesota has shown that they don't operate large programs well secondly the cost of a single payer program would in fact double our taxes that we pay as individuals I've heard numbers as high as the cost of being $3,000 for every man, woman and child in the state of Minnesota for a single payer option and finally about half of the population has their insurance through their employer I think when you tell those folks that they would need to give up their insurance under a single payer plan you would find that people would not be so eager to accept a single payer plan Pat everybody? Well I still stand by the universal healthcare and single payer I think it puts everybody on the same playing field yes there's a cost to it and yes we can have the scare tactics on what those costs are until we get to the table and roll our sleeves up and put a plan together we don't really know what those numbers are and yes I've heard numbers as high as $17,000,000 $1,000,000 whatever it is let's not do the scare tactics let's solve the problem and make sure we have a sustainable piece in place so that everybody has healthcare across the board healthcare is driven by experience, experience and utilization that's what drives the premium if we have a lot of utilization premiums are going to go up costs go up with that so what can we do to reduce those costs and if we have universal healthcare it's one big pool so we're spreading that cost out amongst everybody in essence that lowers the cost down and can keep the premiums in check alright our seventh question will come from Heidi this question has to do with mental health the suicide rate in northern Minnesota and the state in general is increasing at a pretty alarming rate so what can you do as a legislator in the Minnesota House of Representatives to work towards some sort of change in our system when it comes to the mental health of Minnesotans Pat you're first well it's a sad statistic and I just heard this the other day here in Itasca County on a per capita basis for the highest in the state of Minnesota on suicides and that it makes me feel not very good especially working in law enforcement we've had a shift in mental health services and when I started in law enforcement a number of years ago we had Northland mental health services where we had beds available where we could bring individuals for care and those have gone to the wayside and I can tell you over the years we have to make transports all over the state to find those facilities for individuals then it turned to where we started to bring individuals up in jail because of their mental health and that's not a place for them as a state of Minnesota we need to take this seriously and we need to put funding in place so that we can have regional centers if you will that have beds available and making sure that there's access to those beds yes it's costly yes it's expensive but our alternative is not a good alternative if we don't have beds available and spaces available for people to go to get that care we'll have those high suicide rates so we need to come together and work on this together in the end it affects every one of us and sometimes it takes an event an event by individual that family member a neighbor whatever the case may be to get people really fired up about this and come and work on a solution to do that we've got to come together and come up with a plan and make sure that funding is in place to make that happen and I know this last legislative session talked about earmiking some dollars for some regional places I gotta be honest I'm not sure if it happened or not happened I think right now one of the closest places that we utilize is probably in Nolka County and when you sit on and have to look at transportation costs and bring individuals back and forth it gets very expensive so we've got to sit on and look at this on a regional basis and how we can do this regionally thank you Pat Sandy so I think we're all touched by mental health and mental illness in one way or another we have a family member or a friend or a loved one that has suffered from a mental illness and so we're very tuned in to this but what's alarming is the apparent increase in rates of mental illness and I know that the experts that look at this the folks from NAMI for instance they really want to look at data they don't have the data on what's really causing what's the root cause of the increase and I would agree that in some of these cases it's the same thing with addiction that we need to look at the root cause there was an article not too long ago in the Star Tribune that said that over the past six years Minnesota spent 90 million dollars to house patients that no longer need mental health treatment because there's no place for them to go they're housing them in the Anoka treatment center and I know that Itasca County sends folks down to the Anoka treatment center which is very very expensive but they remain there because there's no place for them to go in the last legislative session we did fortunately in the bonding bill that did pass and was signed by the governor there was money in that bonding bill for several regional centers and our local communities are eligible to go to those centers so I think the problem is that when we closed down our large institutions we didn't put in a good mental health infrastructure we didn't have anything to replace it we eliminated one system and didn't have something to replace it with so now we are left with kind of a patchwork of assistance and we're doing as best we can but I think that that's one of the priorities for the states and we'll continue to address it because it's also a cost driver for our local governments like Itasca County and Cascown Thank you. Thank you. Pat? I would add two things and I was glad to hear that it passed and what Sandy had said but the thing that struck my ear there is that locales can apply so that tells me it's a grant problem on all the regions that we're faced with so there's going to be some lucky ones and there's going to be not so lucky ones on the grant dollars itself and that shouldn't be that way if we're serious about mental health we need to come up with that funding mechanism and plan and make sure that all the regions have access to that and one other point I think there's an area here that we didn't talk about that I want to mention in regards to mental health and it has to do with the opioid crisis and that's a driving force to the mental health we failed in the legislature this last time where there was bipartisan support for a penny a pill for funding to tackle the opioid crisis as well as dealing with mental health Republican leadership didn't want it it didn't get any place it didn't happen Sandy? Well, if we want to talk about opioid abuse we had a lot of discussion on opioid abuse over the last few years in 2016 almost 400 people in Minnesota died from opioid overdose and one of my friends in the house who's the representative from Wilmer lost a son to opioid addiction and he's been the leader in the house on fighting this we've had several strategies in the house we've had alternative treatment plans suggested we've had over prescribing legislation that's passed we've had other legislation that looks at determining again the root cause of the abuse which is really important rather than just fighting the result to look at what's causing this and I think that we're going to take this up again we did have several measures in our supplemental budget bill to fight opioid abuse this session but again the supplemental budget bill was passed by the governor Dennis Weiman what can be done at the state level and within the constraints of the constitution to try to stop the next school shooting and I'm looking hopefully to hear something that you believe actually has a realistic chance in passing in our current political climate Sandy you are first well there was a school shooting in Florida just as we started the last legislative session that really shook all of us up and so that when we sat down and prioritized what we were going to look at in a short session with a small supplemental budget school safety rose right to the top of the list and so when we put together a supplemental budget and again unfortunately many of these things were vetoed we had a couple hundred million dollars in that bill to help schools address school safety that wasn't just one thing it was some infrastructure things in securing the schools but a lot of it was focused on mental health to make sure that our schools have the adequate resources available to identify those troubled students early on and to take action in each of these cases it seems as though there was a troubled student who had gone to the school who had been either expelled from the school was currently going to the school that should have been identified at an earlier stage and was not so I think that we will look at this again we fortunately again in the bonding bill we had money in that bonding bill and in fact just today there was an announcement of several schools who did win grant awards to make some changes to their schools whether it's having a single entrance or other security methods but boy we don't want to be in the situation where we're having to barricade our schools to protect our children we would like to be able to tackle this on a personal issue and get at the root cause of what is causing these children to act in this horrific manner thank you Sandy Pat I think there's a couple pieces to this one is we need some good interaction with our community it's not just a school problem even though the school has taken place at the school but this is really about a community issue as a whole and as a community we have to come together and sit on and look at this and try to tackle this and come up with some solutions for it you know we talk about hardening our doors at the schools yes that's an option we talk about more counselors and more social workers yes that's another piece to this all good stuff we all need to be talking about mental health as a whole as a community and again the key thing is about having communication about it and bringing the players to the table I have to agree we lock our doors at the school it just doesn't seem right to do that but that's where we're at today as a society and we got to get beyond that point and beyond that point is we need community involvement in this piece yes there was 90 schools that were fortunate enough to survive for the dollars through the state of Minnesota the 25 million that was allocated but there again I struggle with the fact that it's a grant program we have over 300 in some school districts in the state of Minnesota public schools and then add charter schools to that somebody gets out on the short end of the stick if we're serious about doing this and serious about making this a priority we need to make sure that funding is there for all the school districts whether it's a school district in Ada Minnesota or the school district in the Grand Rapids Minnesota or the school district down in the Minneapolis St. Paul area everybody should have the same opportunity for those funds whether it's for counselors, social workers hardening the doors at the schools bringing the community together we all need to be on the same playing field with that but the bottom key lying to me it's about communication with your community community needs to be part of the solution as well Sandy everybody well in addition to the grants that were available through the bonding project I will say again in the supplemental budget bill our education committee came up with several several ideas and actually put some pretty significant dollars behind those ideas that would help school districts with more flexibility in even using the funds that they do have because it's again not a one size fits all every school is a little bit different and the school is no best we need to do to protect their students so we want to provide not top down solution but the flexibility and the resources for each school to address the issue in their own way Pat? I would just add to that is that the flexibility in some of the instances that Sandy is talking about is pushing it back to the local taxpayer to raise our taxes if the state of Minnesota is responsible for providing our school resources the state of Minnesota needs to take the lead to provide those school resources for our schools you know we talk about some of the initiatives that were in the bills and Governor Dayton vetoed the bill you could ask the question why did Governor Dayton veto the bill when you're bringing omnibus bill with almost a thousand pages in it with a number of issues in it it's pretty hard to sit on and pick and choose what's in it so you're forced to veto it even though there's some good stuff in there if we want to sit on and pass legislation let's talk about what the Constitution says one issue one bill moving forward so that the governor can sit on and look at those issues on a single basis and I think we'll get better results on the end thank you we're done with the question period of our debate tonight we are going to move to closing comments and so for our closing statement Pat you're first well again I want to thank Lakeland TV for this opportunity to come and share some of my thoughts and ideas we started down this venture back in April I don't know what I was getting myself into but the more that I got out and visited with the residents of the district it became apparent to me that there's a lot of frustration that government isn't working for the people and we the people we are really the people we elect representatives and senators and school board directors and city council people we represent those individuals to go down and represent our interests and to do that we need to have the conversation with the people within the district and that's what I've been doing been hearing issues about healthcare been hearing issues about broadband and educational funding and transportation all important but the biggest concern for me is the frustration that people feel that government's not working for them that people aren't listening to them I want to be that representative that goes down to the St. Paul and works for the people and making sure that the issues are being heard and taken care of from the beginning when I said it's about working with you and working for you and that's what I hope to do when I go to St. Paul so thank you thank you Sandy well again I want to thank Lakeland TV for this opportunity tonight I first ran for office two years ago because I wanted to put my experience to work for the people of district 5B in St. Paul and I've been so honored to be able to do that I hope that my constituents are as proud as I am of the accomplishments we've made in the last two years some of the work that we did actually involved stopping bad legislation and policy and I'm pleased to say that we were able to reverse and in some cases actually stop some onerous rules and regulations that were preventing development from taking place and stopping northeastern Minnesota from moving forward so but then much of our work also involved passing major tax relief and then prioritizing our spending we passed a $650 million tax relief bill that helped families it helped main street businesses help farmers it helped students paying back their loans it helped people on social security by reducing income tax that they pay the state on social security which they shouldn't have to pay at all and we made the largest investment as I said earlier in roads and bridges without raising the gas tax really in the history of the state of Minnesota and then most importantly is we made nation leading reforms in health care that immediately helped stop the rapid increase that people were seeing in their health insurance premiums I generally feel that we're on the right track and I really seen bright hopes for the future for northeastern Minnesota I think that we've turned the corner in the last couple of years and we're moving ahead and I'm looking forward to going back to St. Paul and to continue to work on the shared priorities for District 5B I want to thank both Sandy and Pat for agreeing to and taking part in our debate night in 2018. If you missed any portion of tonight's debate or you want to watch it again the Follsborg broadcast will be posted on the Lakeland PBS website within the next 24 hours. That site is lptv.org This is just the first of several debates to come. We will continue to have debates throughout the week as we feature seven legislative debates over four nights of television. Tonight continues as we next will feature the candidates for District 5A Matt Bliss from the Republican Party and John Purcell from the DFL Party. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight and we'll be right back with District 5A. Programming on Lakeland PBS is brought to you in part by Frizel Furniture Gallery