Special session scheduled for Tuesday night

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and top lawmakers promised Monday to speed along at least $150 million in a state flood relief package during a special session of the Legislature set for Tuesday night.

The in-and-out session ? it starts at 5 p.m. and leaders expect it to conclude within a few hours ? will deal mostly with assistance for southeastern Minnesota, where heavy rains three weeks ago caused deadly and damaging flash floods.

"It's about time," said Stockton Mayor Jack Roberts, whose city is still feeding as many as 100 displaced residents and cleanup volunteers twice a day.

Roberts said Pawlenty's announcement of $32 million in flood aid last week helped.

"But I still think people were sitting there saying, `How come it took so long to get the special session?"' he said.

Pawlenty ordered the session after a possible agenda was pared back. A substantial road-building package and a bill including property tax breaks were lopped off the list due to disagreements over their design.

"We didn't want to hold up flood relief any longer," Pawlenty said.

Smaller amounts of money will be set aside to help Cook County recover from spring forest fires and for Minneapolis to help pay costs related to the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

Seven Minnesota counties are federal disaster areas, but money from Washington will cover only a portion of the recovery costs.

Among other things, the state money will pay to repair roads and bridges damaged by the rushing waters, assist homeowners as they clean up or rebuild entirely, defray debris removal costs and help schools cope with expected enrollment fluctations.

None of the officials could detail how much aid homeowners should expect to see, saying it will vary greatly. Pawlenty expects some of the money to be in the form of loans that would be forgiven if a person rebuilds or agrees to stay in the area for a given period.

Depending on the program, Pawlenty said people will get their hands on the money in days, weeks or months. About half of the package will be paid for using cash in the state treasury and long-term borrowing will be used to cover needed public works projects.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said Democrats were willing to put off consideration of non-flood measures to get the aid checks rolling.

"It is very clear that we could not wait much longer," Kelliher said. "Folks have homes and businesses that are gutted to the studs, they don't have heating, they have employment issues right now. We don't want to make that any worse."

Republican minority leaders in the House and Senate promised to help move any procedural barriers to swiftly pass the flood bill.

Pawlenty and lawmakers have bickered over how to structure the session and when to hold it, growing increasingly pointed in their letters and public statements about who is to blame for the delay.

After the Interstate 35W bridge collapse on Aug. 1, there was immediate talk of massive new investment in road and bridge work, fueled partly by an increase in the state gas tax.

But the elected officials struggled for a plan acceptable to majority legislative Democrats, Pawlenty and his GOP allies.

Action on a long-term transportation spending plan -- something that has eluded lawmakers for years -- will have to wait until the 2008 regular session convenes in February.

There was also talk of a bill that would provide property tax breaks to homeowners in places where rates are climbing fast. That too was left for later.

The omissions left a sour taste for mayors who were pushing for increased local government aid. They argue that the bridge and flood disasters only underscored the need to prop up local governments so they can respond to catastrophes and to boost transportation funding.

"A special session that does not deal with two of Minnesota's most critical issues is a mistake," Owatonna Mayor Thomas Kuntz wrote Monday in a letter to legislators.

By Brian Bakst, Associated Press Writer Associated Press writer Martiga Lohn contributed to this report.

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