The argument that the Lessard Outdoor Heritage Council is supposed to balance it’s distribution of funds based on location lacks substance.

Moreover, the idea that the distribution between metro and outstate Minnesota is supposed to be even — as argued by state Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul, and state Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul — is just plain preposterous.

It is too bad the argument of metro vs. outstate too often comes from metro legislators first. Perhaps the outstate legislators are just more giving and metro legislators are more taking.

When the issue is raised properly, usually it is for a clear injustice, such as inequitable school funding. In that case, the divide is really suburbs vs. everywhere else.

It was refreshing for us and for most Minnesotans — whether metro or outstate residents — to see the council pick projects based on conservation merit.

This is precisely why the amendment set up independent panels to discern spending, rather than having government agencies trying to meet the whims of politics or have politicians themselves divvying and diverting the funds. The voters had it right on Election Day: We won’t save Minnesota’s outdoors if we use the population-based legislative system.

The way the Lessard Outdoor Heritage Council chose to spend the habitat funding shows the system is working the way it was meant to.

Anderson, Hansen and other lawmakers who play the metro-vs.-outstate card need to realize that outstate Minnesota and metro Minnesota are much more closely connected than they realize. Most anyone in an outstate city knows many places in the metro they frequent and most anyone in the metro area knows places in outstate Minnesota they like to go. There are connections for business, family, recreation and politics.

Let’s act like we are all Minnesotans, because most voters already know that’s what we really are.