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4) What are the next steps? These draft principles have been distributed to every city and county in the metropolitan area, and we hope to have as many as possible adopt these principles. We are happy to discuss the principles, along with our reasons for wanting reform, with any Board or Council in the area. During the Legislative Session we will present these adopted resolutions to Legislators to illustrate how important reform is to local governments in the metro -area, and we will work with Legislators to advance reform proposals that meet the adopted principles. 5) How do other cities do it? Every other major metropolitan area's regional planning organization (see Attachment B), as well as every other regional planning organization in Minnesota, is made up of a majority of local elected officials. 6) Is this an effort to get rid of the Metropolitan Council? Absolutely not. Regional governance is important, but it would be more effective and credible with local representation. In the current system, Metropolitan Council members are non- elected individuals answerable only to the Governor, an office that has often been elected without majority support from metropolitan -area voters. The Council, which has the ability to levy taxes on metropolitan -area residents, should be answerable to the citizens and taxpayers of the area it represents rather than a single officeholder and should feature strong county representation from local elected officials. 7) Is this a reaction to the ThriveMSP2040 plan? No. Many cities and counties were unhappy with aspects of the Council's plan. However, our call for reform is not a reaction to the specifics of the plan, or to how it allocates resources. Instead, the experience drove home to many what little incentive the Council has to take into account the opinions of local governments. The Council does not answer to the local constituency, but rather to a constituency of one- the Governor. We realized that this was the core problem, and the release of Thrive2040 was the catalyst to renew our efforts to build a coalition for governance reform. 8) Is there other support for this? Yes, many other entities and organizations have come out in support for reform. In 2011, for example, the Office of the Legislative Auditor released a report recommending that the Metropolitan Council be composed of a majority elected officials, citing the Council's "limited credibility" due to a governance structure that limits accountability. 2