Duties
The Council delivers regional services to communities and the public through these divisions and operating areas:
- Regional Administration/Chair's Office - Generally sets the goals and direction the Council will take with the metro area. It also manages finances and makes budget decisions on how shared funding and grant programs are distributed amongst the region.
- Community Development - The majority of land use, regional, urban, and community planning occur with this division. It also develops and administers regional and municipal frameworks as well as the long-range vision plans.
- Transportation - This division is known as Metro Transit to the public and administers all bus and light rail lines. It also analyzes and develops future transportation options. However, road and street corridor planning is left to county and city governments. Highways are planned and managed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Additional public transit agencies also exist under an opt-out agreement of Metro Transit service. The largest agencies are Southwest Metro Transit in the west and Minnesota Valley Transportation Authority in the south.
- Environmental Services - MCES is mandated to address water quality, water supply, and sewage treatment. It also has full jurisdiction of the wastewater treatment system (within the MUSA boundary). This includes maintenance and construction of wastewater interceptors and operation of seven wastewater treatment plants throughout the metro area. Treatment of drinking water and storm run-off water management are left to municipalities.
- Municipal Urban Service Area (MUSA) - While not a division, the MUSA is an urban growth boundary which instead of limiting development, limits the services and infrastructure needed for development. The most important service of which is connection to the sewage treatment system. Growth is controlled because state law prohibits disastrous septic tank systems and most cities require development to be connected to a system.
Read more about this topic: Metropolitan Council
Famous quotes containing the word duties:
“Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men’s aspirations only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.... To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government—not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)