The Hinckley City Council declined to sign letters of support for the NLX rail project during their meeting last week.
According to the city, the council was approached by the NLX Public Relations Officer Jill to collect letters of support from cities for MnDOT's application to the Intercity Passenger Rail Program and the Corridor Identification and Development Program. The letters were sent to the city on March 23 and were asked to be returned by March 24.
While the city was not able to meet the deadline, city staff were still willing to bring the matter before the council for discussion.
During the meeting on April 11, Hinckley Mayor Don Zeman was concerned about the liability the city would face.
"I'm not comfortable moving forward with the letter due to the fact that they're not giving us any information about what is expected from our city," Zeman said. "I think there are a lot of details that we should know before we would sign."
Councilmember John Frank echoed Zeman's comments saying, "They're going to use the current rail system, and that's what we probably get the most complaints about the number of trains blocking traffic every day."
Other council concerns included public safety due to the traffic related to the casino and the maintenance of a potential train station.
No formal vote was cast, but the council unanimously decided against signing the letters due to a lack of information.
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