Sherburne County is looking into having its own lobbyist in Washington.

 

Last week, Lobbyist David Turch offered a proposal to have his firm  provide lobbying services for the county.

 

David Turch and Associates has been in business for over 25 years, he told members of the county board, with public clients from Oregon to Florida and international clients in Norway, Switzerland, England and Ireland.

 

County Administrator Steve Taylor said Turch’s fee is set at $4,000 per month - the same rate as in Stearns County.

 

“We are the dominant public sector firm in the Los Angeles basin,” he said. “We’re very involved with public safety. We established the interoperability communication system for first responders in the L.A. basin.”

 

Turch, who grew up in the St. Cloud area and is a graduate of St. John’s and is currently working with St. Cloud and Stearns County.  He said his firm has connections in all aspects of government.

 

“We’re involved in transportation for anything that comes before the congress or the executive branch,” he said. “We have access to people at the highest levels.”

 

Turch said in his experience, it’s not always obvious how to achieve a goal when it comes to politics. So it takes someone who knows how to navigate the political system.

 

He said when dealing with public safety issues, it seems like the justice department would be the place to start. And for transportation, it would appear the department of transportation would be the place to start.

 

“But not always. In this environment in Washington the way to success is not always very apparent. We’ve done away with earmarks because theoretically, we will save money and reduce the budget,” he said. “But earmarks do not increase the expenditure of the federal government by one penny. It’s just a question of who gets to decide how the money is being spent.”

 

He used the Opportunity Drive interchange off I-94 that was built a few years ago. He said, originally, then Congressman Colin Peterson thought he had enough pull in the Senate to get the interchange built. He didn’t use a lobbyist and the attempt failed.

 

Turch said after that, his firm worked for three years and finally was able to get the job done.

 

“It had been outside the purview of the legislation that had been written for transportation at the time,” he said. “But we got a $5 million increase to MnDOT’s budget in discretionary funds with the understanding that we had to have Opportunity Drive out of that.”

 

He said his firm also worked to get the VA Medical Center expansion accomplished in St. Cloud.

 

Turch said his firm also has a close relationship with Congressman Tom Emmer, who has shown he is intent on helping District 6, which includes Sherburne County.

 

He said if the county decided to hire his firm, he would do an immediate assessment of the county’s needs and opportunities and take them to Washington.

 

“Our firm is large enough to have a fulltime research person on staff, so we can analyze the possibilities of every opportunity that you have and how we would meet those directly with a plan of action,” he said.

 

Commissioner Rachel Leonard said she was always skeptical about lobbyists in the past getting money for unnecessary things.

 

“I think of so many projects that were done, like thee bridge to nowhere,” she said. “I always got soured on the whole process. I think a lot of times things get given out and have nothing to do with need.”

 

Commissioner Felix Schmiesing said the county does have transportation issues that could use funding.

 

“Our county public works director has identified some interchanges that are budget-busters for us  that MnDOT and others are not looking at,” he said. “It would take something exceptional to make them happen.”

 

But he said just having a lobbyist doesn’t mean everything will fall into place by itself.

 

“I think if we do this it forces us to do some planning because just to have someone as a lobbyist doesn’t do you any good unless you know what you want,” he said.

 

“You can’t get what you don’t ask for, and you can’t go after what you don’t know is there. And that is the role I think this connection should play for us.”

 

The board instructed Taylor to discuss a plan with Turch and come back before the board with a recommendation.