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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,January 23,2012 Page 12 Mayor Roe offered strong City Council support of bringing the Northeast Diago- nal back to the forefront. Councilmember Pust opined that the City Council should be more supportive of the legislative delegation; and encouraged them to invite the City to the table for discussions. Councilmember Pust advised that, in the long-term, the public trans- portation needs of the northeast suburbs and Ramsey County residents needed to be back on the map. Councilmember Pust thanked the delegation for their ser- vice, noting that they weren't thanked enough for their dedication and time in rep- resenting the community and area. Councilmember Pust specifically thanked Rep. Greiling for her twenty years of work for the area, opining that the whole community was already missing her. Councilmember Pust questioned if there was anything to report back on yet on the community survey currently in progress by the legislative delegation, and any ar- eas of interest to Roseville or the broader area. Rep. Greiling advised that the Survey Monkey results were still pending. Sen. Marty noted his recent meeting with the Fourth Congressional District with Sen. McCollum, and the obvious lack of representatives of local NE suburbs at the table, and the need to get things back in the bonding bill that were supportive of this area. Sen. Marty advised that if the larger version of the proposed Stillwa- ter Bridge was approved, Highway 36 traffic had the potential to get much worse, and while MnDOT plans for expanding Highway 36 were long-term, if more ve- hicles were channeled onto it, the timeline needed to be pushed forward signifi- cantly. Councilmember Willmus echoed the comments of Mayor Roe regarding the local option sales tax and homestead credits, as well as Councilmember McGehee's comments on better pedestrian and bicycle safety access. Councilmember Willmus noted that, with a local option sales tax, it would allow the City to put those dollars to work without going to the state for bonding; and would serve as a really important tool necessary to explore in the near future. Sen. Marty addressed market value homestead credit, opining that if it came back, it should be fully funded since it was not fair for the legislature to continue to chip away at it, however property tax relief was addressed, and not in name only but actually funded. Sen. Marty opined that this was an extremely difficult time for the City to seek local option sales tax, since the main concern at the state level since the 1970's was in maintaining the equity between communities. Sen. Marty advised that the opinion was that since the cities such as Roseville with significant retail benefited through higher property values from that commercial traffic, thereby compensating them for the additional hassles of retail. Sen. Marty sug- gested that the burden should be on schools and counties, without taking state aid