June 25, 2014 Delivered via e-mail Mayor Betsy Hodges Minneapolis City Hall 350 S. 5th St., Room 331 Minneapolis, MN 55415 Dear Mayor Hodges, This letter outlines the Metropolitan Council’s final response to the City of Minneapolis’ requests in connection with the mediated discussion relating to municipal consent for the METRO Green Line Extension (Southwest Light Rail Transit). This mediated process has now reached a point where clear choices can now be made by the City. Therefore, I am submitting this final response to you in hopes that you and your colleagues will agree that this represents a fair deal for the residents of your city and that you will move swiftly to conclude the municipal consent process. I’ve instructed the Council’s negotiating team to discuss this response with your representatives at the scheduled mediation session on June 27. At the conclusion of the June 27 session, we will end our work with the mediator and going forward, will expect to communicate directly with the City regarding this matter. Because the Metropolitan Council values its relationship with the City of Minneapolis, we voluntarily chose to participate in the mediation process suggested by the City. It has always been our intent to use this process to address issues that fall within the scope of the municipal consent process, as defined in Minnesota Statute 473.3994. Regrettably, the City sought to use this process to obtain contractual language on issues outside the scope of municipal consent. Despite that fact, the Council remained at the table through more than 40 hours of mediation in hopes of finding a means to satisfy Minneapolis’ relevant concerns about the project design. It is time to bring these discussions to their conclusion. As previo usly discuss ed by ou r designated negotiati on teams, the Metrop olitan Co uncil is prep ared to make a series of changes requested by the City to the physical design components of the METRO Green Line Extension, including eliminating the north side of the shallow tunnel through the Kenilworth Corridor, allowing for an at-grade station at 21 st Street. The list of City-requested changes we find acceptable under the law is attached to this letter, following a proposed Memorandum of Understanding on the subject of physical design changes (Attachment A). As the MOU describes, 50 percent of the net savings realized by removal of the north shallow tunnel will be available to meet the City’s other physical design changes. The remaining 50 percent will be used to reduce the overall budget of the project. Improvements requested by the City that fall outside the allotted 50 percent will be considered along with other contingency funding requests as the project progresses. I am prepared to present the physical design changes requested by the City and funded by the 50 percent savings from the removal of the northern tunnel/reinstatement of the 21 st Station to the Metropolitan Council on July 9, 2014, and to recommend that the Council formally amend the project scope and budget to accommodate these changes.
