Minnesota Session Laws - 1983, Regular Session

  

                         Laws of Minnesota 1983 

                         CHAPTER 82--S.F.No. 464
           An act relating to port authorities; providing for 
          approval of port authority land sales; amending 
          Minnesota Statutes 1982, section 458.17. 
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA: 
    Section 1.  Minnesota Statutes 1982, section 458.17, is 
amended to read: 
     458.17 [ADDITIONAL POWERS.] 
     The port authority, in its own name, shall have full power 
and authority to acquire, purchase, construct, lease, or operate 
any bulkheads, jetties, piers, wharves, docks, landing places, 
warehouses, storehouses, elevators, cold storage plants, 
terminals, bridges, and such other terminal or transportation 
facilities as may be necessary or convenient for storing, 
handling, or transporting freight, for the handling of passenger 
traffic, and for the establishment of rail and water transfer 
within the district; to make rules, regulations, and charges for 
the use thereof, and for any service rendered; for such purposes 
to own, hold, lease, or operate real and personal property, to 
borrow money and to secure the same by bonds or mortgages upon 
any property held or to be held by it, and in the case of any 
seaway port authority only to issue and sell negotiable revenue 
bonds of the port authority for such purposes, or any of the 
purposes outlined in this chapter for the development of a 
seaport, such bonds to be issued, sold and secured in the same 
manner as provided below for the construction of a vehicular 
toll bridge or tunnel, except that a trust indenture may but is 
not required to be executed, and in and by the resolutions and 
indenture, if any, authorizing the bonds the port authority 
shall define the facilities whose net revenues are to be pledged 
thereto, and may in its discretion mortgage such facilities to a 
trustee for the bondholders, which facilities may be all of 
those owned by the authority (except any vehicular bridge or 
tunnel) and all subsequent additions thereto and betterments 
thereof, or may be restricted to one or more described 
facilities, including or not including the facilities financed 
by the bonds, and may be facilities which are either operated by 
the authority or are leased to others, and the authority may 
establish such covenants and restrictions regarding the issuance 
of additional bonds payable from net revenues of the same 
facilities, the subsequent amendment of the bond resolutions or 
indenture, the remedies and priorities of the bondholders in the 
event of default and, without limitation, all such other matters 
pertinent to the security of the bonds, as the authority may 
determine to be necessary for the marketing of the bonds to the 
best advantage; to sell, convey, and exchange any real or 
personal property owned or held by it in such manner and on such 
terms as it may see fit, save that no real property owned by the 
authority shall be so sold, exchanged, or the title thereto 
transferred without the unanimous approval of two-thirds of the 
members of the port authority in attendance when such a sale, 
conveyance, exchange or transfer of real property is authorized, 
provided that no such sale, conveyance, exchange or transfer of 
real property shall be considered at any meeting unless all 
commissioners have been given at least ten days written notice 
that such a sale, conveyance, exchange or transfer will be voted 
upon at a special or regular meeting, which notice shall contain 
a complete description of the affected real estate, and provided 
further that such authorization shall not be given unless there 
is at least a quorum present.  The port authority is hereby 
empowered to acquire by condemnation any property, corporeal or 
incorporeal, within the port district which may be needed by it 
for public use; and the fact that the property so needed has 
been acquired by the owner under the power of eminent domain or 
is already devoted to a public use shall not prevent its 
acquisition by the port authority by the exercise of the right 
of eminent domain hereby conferred.  No property now or 
hereafter vested in or held by the state of Minnesota, or any 
city, county, school district, town, or other municipality, 
shall be so taken or acquired by the port authority without the 
consent of the state, municipality, or governmental 
subdivision.  The necessity of the taking of any property by the 
port authority shall be determined by resolution duly adopted by 
the commissioners, which shall describe the property as nearly 
as may be and state the use and purpose to which it is to be 
devoted.  The acquisition of such property shall be thereafter 
accomplished by proceedings by law, as in taking land for public 
use by right of eminent domain under the laws of the state.  
    In addition to the power and authority heretofore conferred 
upon the port authority, the port authority, in its own name, 
shall have full power and authority to acquire and thereafter 
operate and maintain any existing vehicular toll bridge across 
any waters which form a common boundary between any city of the 
first class in the state and any other city either within or 
without the state and to reconstruct, improve, and repair such 
existing bridge; and to construct, maintain, and operate an 
additional vehicular toll bridge and approaches across these 
waters at a point suitable to the interests of navigation, and 
to reconstruct, repair, and improve the same; and to construct, 
maintain, and operate a tunnel under these waters and to 
reconstruct, repair, and improve the same; and to issue and sell 
the negotiable revenue bonds of the port authority for such 
purposes.  Such bonds shall be authorized by resolutions as the 
port authority may determine from time to time, such resolutions 
to contain such provisions with respect to the form thereof and 
maturity, interest rate, sinking fund, redemption, and refunding 
as are customary and usual; and such bonds shall be issued under 
a trust indenture from the port authority to a corporate 
trustee, which indenture shall contain the usual and customary 
provisions with respect to the issuance of bonds, the 
application of the revenues of such bridge or tunnel for the 
creation of a sinking fund to provide for the payment of such 
bonds and interest thereon, and for the holding of the proceeds 
of the bonds in a special trust for the purpose of acquiring or 
constructing such bridge or tunnel, and for the pledge and 
assignment by the port authority to the trustee under such trust 
indenture of the revenues of such bridge or tunnel over and 
above the cost of operation and maintenance thereof as security 
for the payment of the principal of and interest on such bonds.  
The port authority shall establish, maintain, and collect tolls 
for transit over such bridge or through such tunnel acquired or 
constructed hereunder sufficient at all times to pay the cost of 
the operation and maintenance thereof and to pay the principal 
of and interest on the bonds issued hereunder; and such bonds 
and the coupons evidencing interest thereon shall constitute an 
irrevocable contract between the holders thereof and the port 
authority that such tolls shall always be sufficient therefor.  
No bonds issued hereunder shall bear interest at a rate 
exceeding eight percent per annum and all such bonds so issued 
hereunder shall be sold for not less than par and accrued 
interest to the date of delivery and payment and may be sold at 
private sale without prior publication of notice thereof.  All 
such bonds issued hereunder shall never constitute an 
indebtedness of any such city of the first class chargeable to 
its debt limit or payable from ad valorem taxes, but such bonds 
shall be payable solely and only from the toll revenues earned 
by such bridge or tunnel pledged to the payment thereof.  
    When the port authority determines to acquire any of these 
existing bridges, or to construct the additional bridge or 
tunnel, the port authority shall have all rights and powers to 
enter upon lands and to acquire, condemn, occupy, possess, and 
use such real estate and other property as may be needed for the 
location, construction, operation, and maintenance of such 
bridge or tunnel and approaches thereto as are possessed by 
railroad corporations for railroad purposes, or by bridge 
corporations for bridge purposes in the state in which such real 
estate or other property is situated, upon making just 
compensation therefor to be ascertained and paid according to 
the laws of the state in which such property may be located and 
the proceedings therefor shall be the same as in condemnation or 
expropriation of property for public purposes in such state.  
    The port authority shall also have full right and power to 
cause to be made a survey or investigation relating to the 
proper uses, operations, improvement, and development of the 
port district, the stimulation of employment by reason thereof, 
and the benefit to the city and county in which such district 
lies and to the state of Minnesota.  The port authority may also 
cause to be prepared a plan for future construction, 
development, and improvement of the port, which plan may be 
integrated into any existing or future city plans of any city in 
the port district.  Upon completion of the plan, and after 
public hearing, such port authority may adopt the same as its 
official plan for the port district.  Thereafter such plan may 
be extended, modified, or amended after hearing.  Upon the 
adoption of any such plan, all improvements made by such port 
authority shall conform thereto.  
    Any seaway port authority may also operate its port 
terminal facilities constructed on their premises as terminal 
operators and as such, may contract with a warehouse operator or 
operators performing other terminal services on an agency 
basis.  They may enter into such a contract which may provide 
that the agent will be paid a compensation on a monthly basis to 
operate the facilities and that said agent may hire the 
necessary personnel to carry all the functions assumed in said 
contract, and that any and all employees engaged by said agent 
shall be considered employees of such agent and not of the port 
authority, and he shall be responsible for the payment of their 
compensation and in compliance with all local ordinances, state 
or federal laws in regard to employees.  Such seaway port 
authority may also contract with any other agent or agents for 
the performing of any and all functions that the port authority 
has power by law to execute in a like manner.  In contracting 
with so-called managing agent, but in remaining the terminal 
operator, the seaway port authority may contract to retain power 
over the setting of all rates for any services to be performed 
in any terminal facility owned, leased, or operated by said 
seaway port authority.  
     Sec. 2.  [EFFECTIVE DATE.] 
     Section 1 is effective the day following its final 
enactment. 
    Approved May 9, 1983