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LE -3. Official State Mapping <br />Responsibility <br />Issue: For many years, the Minnesota <br />Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has <br />provided the mapping services to keep <br />survey -level accuracy in place for the state's <br />official maps and records. That information <br />changes when roads are made or improved, <br />and needs regular adjustment when <br />municipal boundary adjustments are made. <br />The information is then used at all levels of <br />government to accurately determine <br />property boundaries for transportation aid, <br />utility service boundaries, state and local <br />funding formulas, election issues, and a <br />number of other uses. <br />No state agency, however, has ever been <br />statutorily provided with mapping <br />responsibility and MnDOT is not funded for <br />providing that level of detail in its mapping. <br />Because MnDOT, as an agency, requires <br />less specificity in its maps, a change has <br />slowly been integrated to mostly restrict <br />MnDOT mapping to what changes occur in <br />road ownership and responsibility, leaving <br />many mapping needs unmet for other users <br />of boundary data. <br />Response: The League of Minnesota <br />Cities supports legislation making a <br />named state entity the official provider of <br />survey -level mapping for the state, <br />including maps for municipal boundary <br />adjustments. The Legislature must <br />provide the necessary appropriations to <br />the entity for providing that service. <br />LE -4. Exemptions to the Minnesota <br />Fence Law <br />Issue: Minnesota's partition fence law <br />(Minn. Ch. 344) is designed to mediate <br />boundary, fence, and trespass disputes by <br />requiring adjoining landowners to share the <br />cost of constructing a partition fence in <br />certain circumstances. The partition fence <br />law is primarily used in rural Minnesota <br />communities where the fences are required <br />to contain livestock, although the <br />requirements of the fence law apply to a <br />city, even if it has adopted an ordinance <br />regulating fences. The fence law grants <br />towns the power to exempt smaller parcels <br />from the requirements of the law and to <br />adopt a fence ordinance that supersedes the <br />fence law, but that power is not granted to <br />statutory or home rule charter cities. Many <br />disputes between property owners are more <br />appropriately mediated under local <br />ordinances, and cities should be granted the <br />same exemption powers as towns so that <br />they are not forced to mediate disputes <br />under the partition fence law. <br />Response: The Legislature should amend <br />Minn. Stat. §§ 344.011 and 344.20 to <br />grant home rule charter and statutory <br />cities the same exemption powers <br />currently granted to towns. <br />LE -5. Electric Service Extension <br />Issue: Minnesota law preserves the right of <br />municipal electric utilities to grow with the <br />cities they serve. Municipal electric utilities <br />may grow either through application to the <br />Minnesota Public Utilities Commission <br />(MPUC) or through condemnation <br />proceedings. Eliminating authority of <br />municipal electric utilities to extend <br />services, or making extension of municipal <br />electric service to annexed property <br />unreasonably costly, would interfere with <br />community development and make it <br />unfeasible for municipal electric utilities to <br />serve properties located within rural electric <br />cooperative (REC) or other electric service <br />provider service territory in annexed areas, <br />even if the REC or other electric utility had <br />not served them prior to annexation. <br />League of Minnesota Cities <br />2016 City Policies Page 47 <br />