A Brief Explanation of the Met Council

The Legislature established the Metropolitan Council in 1967 to coordinate planning and development within the Twin Cities metropolitan area and to address issues that could not be adequately managed with individual governmental arrangements.   

• The Metropolitan Council is the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for the Twin Cities metropolitan region, including Shorewood.
  
  
• It provides for orderly and economical development of the metropolitan area through the Comprehensive Plan process. It is funded through the “Special Taxing District” (Line 10 of your tax statement) laws.
  
  
• State law requires the Met Council to create regional plans and policies to guide growth and manage regional systems for transportation, aviation, water resources, sewage and regional parks. The law also requires local governments to update their comprehensive plans every ten years.
  
  
• Under the law, the Met Council reviews each city’s comprehensive plan to ensure it is in accord with the overall framework provided by the regional plans. The review helps determine how a community’s planned actions relate to the interests of the whole region over the long term. It helps ensure that costly public infrastructure, like roads and sewers, are built in an economical and coordinated fashion, so that user fees and tax dollars are spent wisely and current and future needs are addressed.
  
  
• Sometimes controversial because the members are appointed rather than elected, the Council consists of 17 members. Shorewood is in Met Council District 3. The current Shorewood representative is Dr. Tyrone Carter.

Various sources were used to compile this information, including documents from the Metropolitan Council, City of Shorewood website and LMCC.

What you can do:

1. Learn more about the Metropolitan Council.
   
   
2. Learn more about  Met Council activities and the Shorewood representative.
   
   
3. Encourage the City of Shorewood to be more transparent about Met Council’s influence and activities involving the City.