My friend Donna and her husband moved to Minnesota from Maryland last year. The shortage of really good crab cakes aside, everyone she knew and met told her she was going to love it here.
They rattled off all the usual things we brag about: the remarkable array of cultural resources, the friendly people, the clean air, the renowned park system, the ability to fly to 131 cities nonstop, our great University of Minnesota, and, of course, the Mall of America. But they left out a few details, one of which Donna discovered when she went to get her Minnesota driver’s license.
After they took her photo and she filled out a form, the license people punched a hole where the expiration date appeared on her Maryland license. Then they gave her a little slip of paper that said “Temporary License,” and told her it would expire in 30 days or when her new license arrived, which should happen first. Finally, they asked if she wanted to register to vote, to which she replied, “Yes.”
The first shock came when she tried to go through security at the airport. The fact that the guards couldn’t read the expiration date on her license, because it had been punched out, raised alarms. The temporary license wasn’t a big hit with security, either. At airports outside of Minnesota and Maryland it was even worse. And to compound the problem, her new license didn’t arrive for six weeks, which meant there was a period of two weeks when neither her old license nor her temporary license appeared to be valid. Wonderful.
The crowning touch on the whole experience was the revelation that, despite being asked if she wanted to register to vote in the state, she wasn’t registered. Oh, and did I mention that she had to go to two different buildings to get her driver’s license and automobile license tags?
Now, one might argue that time-consuming procedures and extra safeguards are the necessary byproducts of increased security and identity-theft precautions. But if one were to so argue, one would be wrong. Minnesota just has a cumbersome, antiquated, customer-unfriendly system.
That became apparent when a fellow sitting next to Donna and me, overhearing our conversation, said he was from North Dakota (not generally thought of as a high-tech state), and there, you get your driver’s license while you wait. The whole procedure, including the delivery of the actual security-protected license, takes 30 minutes, he told us. Donna added that in Maryland, you receive your license by mail within just a couple of days—and you can register to vote.
Two of my friends are commercial real estate developers. They both tell me it’s a nightmare trying to get approval for projects in the city of Minneapolis. And I personally experienced an expensive, time-consuming, frustrating situation in which a local not-for-profit building project was given the green light by multiple city inspectors, only to be held up far along in the construction process when the organization was told by officials that changes had to be made in the plans.
What’s my point? Simply this: We’re doing a mediocre job of making this state welcoming and helpful. Where resources exist—computers, high-speed printers, laminators, North Dakota instruction manuals—we should use them to make life simpler and more enjoyable for our citizens. Where systems are hung up by standard operating procedures or bureaucracy or inertia, the governor, the county boards, and the mayors should demand sweeping changes.
The citizens of this state pay a lot in taxes. They have to put up with a lot of things that are beyond anyone’s ability to fix, at least at a reasonable cost. So they should not have to put up with problems that can be fixed.
Donna, I’m sorry your first experience in Minnesota was such a mess, but just maybe, someone will read this and take the message seriously.
